Part 4
The pod lay in the lab, the one time he'd tried opening it resulting in Emma screaming in excruciating agony and clawing at her own eyes. Nothing Adam could do could stop her and even sedatives, while calming her thrashing limbs, had no effect on her tortured mind.
So now she lay like Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, just waiting for her Prince Charming to come and wake her up.
"You're mixing up your fairy tales," Magda told him, puffing away on her cigarette. "Snow White with the coffin and Cinderella with Prince Charming. Honestly, how a man who can recite the periodic table backwards in four dead languages, yet not know such simple little details any five year old could tell you, is quite beyond me."
Adam chuckled although the humour never reached his eyes. "I don't know how I've ever managed without you, Maggie," Adam said quietly as he studied Emma's youthful face and wondered if she would end up wasting twenty five years in there. "And I don't know what to do now. The kids are working almost twenty four seven to find Brennan. I have no idea how to get Jesse back to Sanctuary and even if I could what would I do with him? What am I going to do with any of them?
"You're looking at mountains again, Adam," Magda told him whilst craning her head to look at Emma properly. "Pretty little thing, isn't she? Be breaking hearts in a couple years."
"Already has," Adam smiled.
"They start so young these days, don't they?" Magda sighed and took another drag. "Now, start from the top and stop trying to be so damned clever. You've got the pod person here?"
"Emma. Who's apparently been subjected to some kind of intense - "
"You're not listening, Doc. Simplify!"
Adam blinked. "She's insane?"
"Better. And?"
"She's safe here."
"Right. And Shalimar?"
"Insane. And safe here."
"See? You can be intelligent when you try."
"Jesse, also insane. Safe. But not here."
"You sure about safe part?"
Adam thought about Rylands and the overworked doctor there, and was suddenly not convinced that Jesse would stay put. "No, but we need to communicate with him to get him to come home. He doesn't know that we've rebuilt."
"Jesse and Shalimar were inseparable, you know."
"How could I forget," Adam laughed. "Wherever one was, the other was never far behind."
"Mmmm. and Jesse still knows how to read?"
"Sure, but he can't pick up a - oh. Now that was kinda obvious."
"Exactly. There is such a thing as being too smart for your own good. Now go bring that boy home. He and Shalimar need each other. Then you can concentrate on Sparky."
"Maggie, there are times when I truly love you," Adam said, before running for the door.
*****
Adam's brief burst of optimism dissipated far too quickly. It was one thing to leave a message somewhere very obvious that Jesse stood a chance of seeing, but it was quite another waiting for that chance to occur.
And further, once that chance had occurred, there was no way to try and hurry up someone who didn't seem able to interact with the physical, tangible world. It seemed to take hours before Jesse made up his mind and made a positive move out of the building. And then it seemed to take him another age to find the car. Almost like a blind man feeling his way about.
The drive back to Sanctuary was an experience of life with the Invisible Man. Adam found it hard to believe that anyone was sitting in the passenger seat, even when Jesse was visible, and the BMW, no matter how robust its suspension, was not used to the abrupt shifts in weight between his phased and massed forms.
When they arrived at the base of the beach side mountain, Adam drove through the garage and into the hanger in the hope that parking close to Shalimar might just anchor Jesse here.
Shalimar's reaction was immediate, but one of confusion. She was pressed against the wall facing the car, shying away from Adam but clearly trying to reach Jesse. When he was invisible she could still sense him, and that confused her.
She prowled around her cage, always by the wall closest to Jesse, unintelligible sounds coming from her throat, yet, to Adam, a far more encouraging sight than the tightly curled figure in the corner had been.
Jesse, for his part, sensed Shalimar almost immediately, but it was the same thing that had happened at Rylands. Adam saw him, phasing almost from solidity to invisible intangibility and back as he ran to the cage, put his hand up to meet Shalimar's and pass right through both Perspex and flesh.
Then, suddenly all massed anger, he pounded on the Perspex, which started to give, and without thought Adam pounced to try and pull Jesse away before he broke Shalimar's cage. And slid straight through the molecular who didn't seem to notice, just stood leaning his head against the wall with closed eyes.
Later on, Adam would find them both curled up asleep on either side of the wall, just the Perspex between them. Crouching in front of Jesse, Adam's automatic reflex was to push the too long hair back from his eyes but he caught himself. Then wondered if this was all in his mind? He leaned in with the lightest touch, breath held as nothing happened until he reached the point where he thought skin should be. But there was nothing. His fingers slipped straight through as if Jesse were just a projection in a movie.
Food for thought and Adam left the pair of them there, a bond between them so strong that nothing on this earth could break it.
*****
"Adam, we have a problem!" Natasha's worried voice woke Adam from one of his few fitful sleeps and he hurried to the lab. "Corey and David are in trouble." She was trying to be calm, but Adam could hear the trembling undertone of her worry for her husband. "Uh, we, um. Monitoring the power companies, we picked up a pattern of failing substations. They don't fail for long, just a few minutes. By the time the remote engineers get there, it's functioning fine. We put them together with police reports, and they tie in with robberies that occur at one or two select homes and businesses.
"It was kind of tentative, because it's been happening in several counties and is pretty low key, so it's not been picked up by either the power companies or the police. Anyway, there's a pattern, and the guys took off for where we thought the next place might be, here, Bennington. Small place with a small diamond merchant. It might not even be Brennan Mulwray responsible, it was just a hypothesis."
"Why didn't you wake me?" Adam asked tightly. He hadn't intended for these three to be put in danger, and didn't think he could cope with losing them too.
Natasha took a deep breath. "Because when I checked you were sleeping soundly, and you don't get enough sleep as it is. I thought it was worth checking out before disturbing you. My bad call."
Adam closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. They were only trying to help. And they'd done a damned fine job so far. "Okay, what happened?"
Natasha played back the recording of Corey and David's last communication. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of flesh striking flesh. And in the end, an unfamiliar voice demanding, "Tell Adam Kane to get his ass out here now. The boss wants to see him or the wannabe's get it."
*****
Adam had no idea what he was walking into and just hoped that he could deal with whatever was thrown at him.
Humming lines surrounded the sub-station, and only a small brick building in the centre indicated any life. A man in denim with long matted hair, toting a machine gun, guarded the single door.
There had been a large pick-up parked on the roadside a little distance away next to his own Audi, the car the boys had borrowed, and Adam guessed that it probably belonged to the men here.
Approaching cautiously, Adam announced his presence and, with a snarling glare, the guard let him in.
Inside, David and Corey, looking dishevelled and bruised, sat on the floor tied back to back, blindfolded and gagged. Adam felt like cheering when he saw a figure sprawled on the floor next to the wall, shaking a little and moaning slightly in his sleep. Brennan. Two more guards sat at a small table playing cards and smoking cigars, and neither seemed to be taking any notice of him.
"I believe your boss wanted to see me?" Adam said, trying to prompt some reaction.
"Yeah, yeah," growled one, waving vaguely at centre of the room. "In a minute."
"Now. I'm kinda busy and I'd like to get this little tête-à-tête over with."
"Do what?" said the first. "A little tit on tit?"
"No fucking idea," spat the other. "Sounds kinda perverted to me."
The first man got up from the table and walked over to Brennan. He bent slightly and took the cigar from his mouth. "Hey, boss! Your buddy's here!" He shrugged and went back to continue the card game.
"Okay, okay I'm coming," Brennan grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face and clambering to his feet. He looked haggard and drawn, dark rings below his eyes as he looked Adam up and down."
"Brennan, are you okay, where are - "
"What do you care? Adam." Brennan interrupted. "Play your little mind games with us, sell us off to the highest bidder, and next minute you have a whole new team. What is with you?"
"Brennan, what are you talking about? You're making no sense!" Adam tried to understand what the angry elemental was saying.
"Oh, always protecting us, always making sure our powers won't hurt us or anyone else. You know what? It was Magarathea who had all the answers in the end. At least she was honest enough to tell us she was selling us out. It was her powers that unlocked our powers. That's what she said, that she'd unleashed our full potential, so that we might know what it was to be imprisoned by them." Brennan looked confused for a moment. "Of course," he continued, "I don't get that last bit."
"Magarathea?" Adam asked, his mind whirling at the thought that all their problems could be of genetic origin rather than mental. "What exactly did she do?"
Brennan sneered. "Oh, don't tell me, the all seeing, all knowing doesn't know everything. After you bailed on us in the explosion, Magarathea's power went out of control and nuked us all." He blinked. "But that's all past history. Right now, I have power, I have more power than you, or any money grabbing fat cat or politician could ever dream of. And I'm using it, slowly, to build me an empire that'll show each and every one of you exactly who is in charge."
Adam could swear the elemental's eyes were sparking as he pushed past outside. Standing feet apart and raising his hands, Brennan arced bolts of lightning at the pylons and they came back to him tenfold. With a long cry of ecstasy, he absorbed, something he'd never been able to do before. One hand moved over to the surrounding chain linked fence and set it dancing blue lightning, and Adam realised that Brennan wasn't actually absorbing. He was channelling and re-routing the electricity.
And getting drunk on the power, but the power was the only thing he knew. His own power was all he knew. Just like Jesse. And Emma. And Shalimar. But reminiscent of Ashley before him, a new mutant whose power it was to absorb electricity, that the team had met shortly after Emma and Brennan had joined, Brennan needed the power to survive. A power junkie for want of a better description.
And as Brennan's capacity for channelling the power dwindled with satiation, rock pillars pushed through the earth to expand and surround him. Too late Brennan realised and started flinging bolts, primarily at Adam, then at the stumbling Corey. He didn't see David reach out and make the motion of grabbing air and pulling it to him, creating a vacuum around Brennan that had him clawing at his throat, gasping and suffocating until, finally, he passed out.
Strangely enough, the three gun-toting guards were nowhere to be seen.
*****
Having been abandoned by the one person he was beginning to trust above all others, the need to show Adam how powerful he'd become was overwhelming. He'd only meant to show him what he could do, but the electricity flowing through Brennan was so enervating, so strong. And it made him stronger, and he was lost in the power of it.
He was going to be weak as a kitten once he'd expended the excess, but for the moment he was absolutely certain that he was the most powerful being on the planet.
He came down slowly, unwilling to let the last vestiges of power leave him too quickly, only to be assaulted by earth and wind. He'd taken them by surprise before, but now they'd somehow freed themselves and surprised him. Right at his weakest moment.
Now he knew how Jesse used to feel when he had to go vulnerable to take breath. And as his air left him, amidst the black spots dancing before his eyes, Brennan saw a vision, perhaps a memory, of Absalom laughing at him.
*****
"Don't you think we're turning into a mutant collection agency?" David remarked as they ate. "I mean, we have your four guys back and now we're after Magarathea? And her little healer kid?"
"I know," said Adam, not really tasting the food. "But Magarathea did something their powers and, on top of that, I'm sure if we get as many of the pieces here as possible we can solve this." He sighed, unsure how to explain his methodology. "It's just putting together what we know with a good dose of gut feeling. The only missing piece then is Absalom."
"Are you sure he's dead?" Corey asked, playing with his noodles.
"I - " Adam paused, frowning. "As I can be. I don't remember a whole lot about it to be honest. The healer child exorcised him from his host. See, Absalom was a pure psionic, very diverse in his powers but he had no corporeal body and used others like a parasite, but he couldn't survive long without a body. Of course it drove him mad, made him unpredictable. But I think Magarathea is the key here. We just have to persuade her that she wants to come and help us out."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Natasha asked, and Adam looked at her brightly.
"I'm not," he said. "You are. The same way you enticed Eckhart."
*****
There was no point in pretending that Magarathea didn't know where Sanctuary was, information that she would sell, should the price be high enough. Adam was confident of the new security systems, though, so he invited her to come at her own convenience. She had stared silently at him over the vid unit for some time before accepting with suspiciously little argument, even so far as agreeing to bring the little healer child with her.
She arrived with little fanfare, waiting at the foot of the mountain for an invitation in a plain black Trans Am. Just her and the child.
Lowering the camouflage shield and raising the garage door was invitation enough and Adam met them inside the garage. He was suspicious of the fact that Magarathea, a known mercenary, had not asked for so much as a sou to come out here and help his team. He had to deal with that first before letting the child that clung to her trousers anywhere near his team, for while he would sell his soul to the devil himself to save any one of them, it was in all their best interests to at least try and negotiate a deal. But he was all too aware that he held all the low cards at this table.
And Magarathea was not going to play. She refused to negotiate, saying only that Adam would owe her a favour that she would collect in the not too distant future. She was emotionless and intractable and he soon had to give in.
*****
Adam didn't like being kept out of anything, much less by a pair of dubious mercenaries with unknown motives claiming to be able to heal one of his team members. However, Magarathea's explanation was that while she could push Emma's defensive shields up for them to heal her, it was imperative that there be as few people as possible close enough to distract them.
And heal her the child would have to do, for while Magarathea could regress each of the four mutant's abilities back to their original state even from a distance under normal circumstances, damage had been done by the continued stress on their bodies and minds which meant that the regression and healing had to be performed in a delicate conjunction with each other.
So Adam asked Natasha to keep an eye on them as best she could through the computers even though he was certain that whatever was going on in there would be beyond the cyber-psionic's scope.
Magarathea seemed to be under some considerable strain, but Emma remained calm as the pod was opened this time. The child laid hands glowing a soft blue at Emma's temples and, although the process was slow, Magarathea's efforts became increasingly unnecessary until at last, Emma opened her eyes. A few words passed between Emma and Magarathea, and then Adam was in the room while Magarathea took the child away to the living area to eat and rest.
Naturally, Adam put an exhausted Emma through a gamut of tests, doing his utmost to make sure she was safe. He badly wanted to reassure her, reassure himself with some tactile gesture, a hug, or at least a supporting squeeze of her arm but, as she seemed understandably reticent and oversensitive, he refrained, feeling somewhat surreally out of touch.
*****
It wasn't too much later that Magarathea deemed the child rested enough to work on Brennan, although there was no mention of her own exhaustion. The austere woman had decided that Shalimar and Jesse needed to be worked upon together, and the child would therefore need a good deal more rest before attempting to help them.
For someone who seemed so cold and emotionless, Magarathea showed a lot of care and concern for the youngster, whose name had not been given. The child itself was frail and androgynous, although Adam had the impression that it was a little boy who looked to be about seven or eight, although could well be older.
Brennan was slumped on the cot that had been moved into the dojo for him. The force field prevented his escape, so he spent the time taking pot shots at imaginary cockroaches. With Emma back on her feet, if uncharacteristically quiet, Adam acceded to her request to be allowed to join them.
As they entered the training area Brennan surged to his feet, the arrogant expression making his dark features almost cruel, and it occurred to Adam then that the elemental was not one he would like to meet as a true enemy.
With Emma in the middle, Adam and Magarathea watched the child approach the dojo, Magarathea having assured Adam that the force field was no obstacle. Indeed, the child walked straight through, and Brennan didn't seem to know how to deal with this unthreatening being.
While Magarathea's eyes closed and her head bowed in concentration, working from where she stood, the child held its hand out and, hesitantly, warily, Brennan took it. The glow began and instantly Brennan yelped, pulling roughly away. But the child held on, physically unmoved, rooted as surely as the mountain.
Lightening crackled in the air around them, and while the child's face remained placid, Brennan's contorted in agony as he fell to his knees. The energy built up around them to such a phenomenal extent that Adam hastily checked the monitors for weaknesses in the powerful force field. The sound and light show built to crescendo, reverberating through the very bedrock until with a sharp, bright crack, it stopped, leaving everyone momentarily blind and deafened by the silence.
As soon as the black spots started to dissipate, Adam saw Brennan slumped on the floor and the child already back with Magarathea. He switched off the force field and Emma ran to the elemental, kneeling on the floor and cradling his head in her lap.
Adam checked him over and, from a casual inspection, he seemed only stunned. He would give the elemental the full barrage of tests as he had with Emma of course, but for the moment it only remained to make sure that he recovered from the mental and physical healing assault he'd just been through. Hearing a moan and a curse from the semi-conscious Brennan, Adam breathed in relief.
The tall mutant's eyelids fluttered open and he smiled up at Emma. When his eyes fell upon Adam, however, he flinched away slightly, and the older man could hardly blame him. If the young man had any recollection of past events, he must be feeling both angry and guilty at the very least.
So Adam just smiled understandingly and persuaded Brennan that he needed to be checked over properly.
*****
To be continued.
The pod lay in the lab, the one time he'd tried opening it resulting in Emma screaming in excruciating agony and clawing at her own eyes. Nothing Adam could do could stop her and even sedatives, while calming her thrashing limbs, had no effect on her tortured mind.
So now she lay like Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, just waiting for her Prince Charming to come and wake her up.
"You're mixing up your fairy tales," Magda told him, puffing away on her cigarette. "Snow White with the coffin and Cinderella with Prince Charming. Honestly, how a man who can recite the periodic table backwards in four dead languages, yet not know such simple little details any five year old could tell you, is quite beyond me."
Adam chuckled although the humour never reached his eyes. "I don't know how I've ever managed without you, Maggie," Adam said quietly as he studied Emma's youthful face and wondered if she would end up wasting twenty five years in there. "And I don't know what to do now. The kids are working almost twenty four seven to find Brennan. I have no idea how to get Jesse back to Sanctuary and even if I could what would I do with him? What am I going to do with any of them?
"You're looking at mountains again, Adam," Magda told him whilst craning her head to look at Emma properly. "Pretty little thing, isn't she? Be breaking hearts in a couple years."
"Already has," Adam smiled.
"They start so young these days, don't they?" Magda sighed and took another drag. "Now, start from the top and stop trying to be so damned clever. You've got the pod person here?"
"Emma. Who's apparently been subjected to some kind of intense - "
"You're not listening, Doc. Simplify!"
Adam blinked. "She's insane?"
"Better. And?"
"She's safe here."
"Right. And Shalimar?"
"Insane. And safe here."
"See? You can be intelligent when you try."
"Jesse, also insane. Safe. But not here."
"You sure about safe part?"
Adam thought about Rylands and the overworked doctor there, and was suddenly not convinced that Jesse would stay put. "No, but we need to communicate with him to get him to come home. He doesn't know that we've rebuilt."
"Jesse and Shalimar were inseparable, you know."
"How could I forget," Adam laughed. "Wherever one was, the other was never far behind."
"Mmmm. and Jesse still knows how to read?"
"Sure, but he can't pick up a - oh. Now that was kinda obvious."
"Exactly. There is such a thing as being too smart for your own good. Now go bring that boy home. He and Shalimar need each other. Then you can concentrate on Sparky."
"Maggie, there are times when I truly love you," Adam said, before running for the door.
*****
Adam's brief burst of optimism dissipated far too quickly. It was one thing to leave a message somewhere very obvious that Jesse stood a chance of seeing, but it was quite another waiting for that chance to occur.
And further, once that chance had occurred, there was no way to try and hurry up someone who didn't seem able to interact with the physical, tangible world. It seemed to take hours before Jesse made up his mind and made a positive move out of the building. And then it seemed to take him another age to find the car. Almost like a blind man feeling his way about.
The drive back to Sanctuary was an experience of life with the Invisible Man. Adam found it hard to believe that anyone was sitting in the passenger seat, even when Jesse was visible, and the BMW, no matter how robust its suspension, was not used to the abrupt shifts in weight between his phased and massed forms.
When they arrived at the base of the beach side mountain, Adam drove through the garage and into the hanger in the hope that parking close to Shalimar might just anchor Jesse here.
Shalimar's reaction was immediate, but one of confusion. She was pressed against the wall facing the car, shying away from Adam but clearly trying to reach Jesse. When he was invisible she could still sense him, and that confused her.
She prowled around her cage, always by the wall closest to Jesse, unintelligible sounds coming from her throat, yet, to Adam, a far more encouraging sight than the tightly curled figure in the corner had been.
Jesse, for his part, sensed Shalimar almost immediately, but it was the same thing that had happened at Rylands. Adam saw him, phasing almost from solidity to invisible intangibility and back as he ran to the cage, put his hand up to meet Shalimar's and pass right through both Perspex and flesh.
Then, suddenly all massed anger, he pounded on the Perspex, which started to give, and without thought Adam pounced to try and pull Jesse away before he broke Shalimar's cage. And slid straight through the molecular who didn't seem to notice, just stood leaning his head against the wall with closed eyes.
Later on, Adam would find them both curled up asleep on either side of the wall, just the Perspex between them. Crouching in front of Jesse, Adam's automatic reflex was to push the too long hair back from his eyes but he caught himself. Then wondered if this was all in his mind? He leaned in with the lightest touch, breath held as nothing happened until he reached the point where he thought skin should be. But there was nothing. His fingers slipped straight through as if Jesse were just a projection in a movie.
Food for thought and Adam left the pair of them there, a bond between them so strong that nothing on this earth could break it.
*****
"Adam, we have a problem!" Natasha's worried voice woke Adam from one of his few fitful sleeps and he hurried to the lab. "Corey and David are in trouble." She was trying to be calm, but Adam could hear the trembling undertone of her worry for her husband. "Uh, we, um. Monitoring the power companies, we picked up a pattern of failing substations. They don't fail for long, just a few minutes. By the time the remote engineers get there, it's functioning fine. We put them together with police reports, and they tie in with robberies that occur at one or two select homes and businesses.
"It was kind of tentative, because it's been happening in several counties and is pretty low key, so it's not been picked up by either the power companies or the police. Anyway, there's a pattern, and the guys took off for where we thought the next place might be, here, Bennington. Small place with a small diamond merchant. It might not even be Brennan Mulwray responsible, it was just a hypothesis."
"Why didn't you wake me?" Adam asked tightly. He hadn't intended for these three to be put in danger, and didn't think he could cope with losing them too.
Natasha took a deep breath. "Because when I checked you were sleeping soundly, and you don't get enough sleep as it is. I thought it was worth checking out before disturbing you. My bad call."
Adam closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. They were only trying to help. And they'd done a damned fine job so far. "Okay, what happened?"
Natasha played back the recording of Corey and David's last communication. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of flesh striking flesh. And in the end, an unfamiliar voice demanding, "Tell Adam Kane to get his ass out here now. The boss wants to see him or the wannabe's get it."
*****
Adam had no idea what he was walking into and just hoped that he could deal with whatever was thrown at him.
Humming lines surrounded the sub-station, and only a small brick building in the centre indicated any life. A man in denim with long matted hair, toting a machine gun, guarded the single door.
There had been a large pick-up parked on the roadside a little distance away next to his own Audi, the car the boys had borrowed, and Adam guessed that it probably belonged to the men here.
Approaching cautiously, Adam announced his presence and, with a snarling glare, the guard let him in.
Inside, David and Corey, looking dishevelled and bruised, sat on the floor tied back to back, blindfolded and gagged. Adam felt like cheering when he saw a figure sprawled on the floor next to the wall, shaking a little and moaning slightly in his sleep. Brennan. Two more guards sat at a small table playing cards and smoking cigars, and neither seemed to be taking any notice of him.
"I believe your boss wanted to see me?" Adam said, trying to prompt some reaction.
"Yeah, yeah," growled one, waving vaguely at centre of the room. "In a minute."
"Now. I'm kinda busy and I'd like to get this little tête-à-tête over with."
"Do what?" said the first. "A little tit on tit?"
"No fucking idea," spat the other. "Sounds kinda perverted to me."
The first man got up from the table and walked over to Brennan. He bent slightly and took the cigar from his mouth. "Hey, boss! Your buddy's here!" He shrugged and went back to continue the card game.
"Okay, okay I'm coming," Brennan grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face and clambering to his feet. He looked haggard and drawn, dark rings below his eyes as he looked Adam up and down."
"Brennan, are you okay, where are - "
"What do you care? Adam." Brennan interrupted. "Play your little mind games with us, sell us off to the highest bidder, and next minute you have a whole new team. What is with you?"
"Brennan, what are you talking about? You're making no sense!" Adam tried to understand what the angry elemental was saying.
"Oh, always protecting us, always making sure our powers won't hurt us or anyone else. You know what? It was Magarathea who had all the answers in the end. At least she was honest enough to tell us she was selling us out. It was her powers that unlocked our powers. That's what she said, that she'd unleashed our full potential, so that we might know what it was to be imprisoned by them." Brennan looked confused for a moment. "Of course," he continued, "I don't get that last bit."
"Magarathea?" Adam asked, his mind whirling at the thought that all their problems could be of genetic origin rather than mental. "What exactly did she do?"
Brennan sneered. "Oh, don't tell me, the all seeing, all knowing doesn't know everything. After you bailed on us in the explosion, Magarathea's power went out of control and nuked us all." He blinked. "But that's all past history. Right now, I have power, I have more power than you, or any money grabbing fat cat or politician could ever dream of. And I'm using it, slowly, to build me an empire that'll show each and every one of you exactly who is in charge."
Adam could swear the elemental's eyes were sparking as he pushed past outside. Standing feet apart and raising his hands, Brennan arced bolts of lightning at the pylons and they came back to him tenfold. With a long cry of ecstasy, he absorbed, something he'd never been able to do before. One hand moved over to the surrounding chain linked fence and set it dancing blue lightning, and Adam realised that Brennan wasn't actually absorbing. He was channelling and re-routing the electricity.
And getting drunk on the power, but the power was the only thing he knew. His own power was all he knew. Just like Jesse. And Emma. And Shalimar. But reminiscent of Ashley before him, a new mutant whose power it was to absorb electricity, that the team had met shortly after Emma and Brennan had joined, Brennan needed the power to survive. A power junkie for want of a better description.
And as Brennan's capacity for channelling the power dwindled with satiation, rock pillars pushed through the earth to expand and surround him. Too late Brennan realised and started flinging bolts, primarily at Adam, then at the stumbling Corey. He didn't see David reach out and make the motion of grabbing air and pulling it to him, creating a vacuum around Brennan that had him clawing at his throat, gasping and suffocating until, finally, he passed out.
Strangely enough, the three gun-toting guards were nowhere to be seen.
*****
Having been abandoned by the one person he was beginning to trust above all others, the need to show Adam how powerful he'd become was overwhelming. He'd only meant to show him what he could do, but the electricity flowing through Brennan was so enervating, so strong. And it made him stronger, and he was lost in the power of it.
He was going to be weak as a kitten once he'd expended the excess, but for the moment he was absolutely certain that he was the most powerful being on the planet.
He came down slowly, unwilling to let the last vestiges of power leave him too quickly, only to be assaulted by earth and wind. He'd taken them by surprise before, but now they'd somehow freed themselves and surprised him. Right at his weakest moment.
Now he knew how Jesse used to feel when he had to go vulnerable to take breath. And as his air left him, amidst the black spots dancing before his eyes, Brennan saw a vision, perhaps a memory, of Absalom laughing at him.
*****
"Don't you think we're turning into a mutant collection agency?" David remarked as they ate. "I mean, we have your four guys back and now we're after Magarathea? And her little healer kid?"
"I know," said Adam, not really tasting the food. "But Magarathea did something their powers and, on top of that, I'm sure if we get as many of the pieces here as possible we can solve this." He sighed, unsure how to explain his methodology. "It's just putting together what we know with a good dose of gut feeling. The only missing piece then is Absalom."
"Are you sure he's dead?" Corey asked, playing with his noodles.
"I - " Adam paused, frowning. "As I can be. I don't remember a whole lot about it to be honest. The healer child exorcised him from his host. See, Absalom was a pure psionic, very diverse in his powers but he had no corporeal body and used others like a parasite, but he couldn't survive long without a body. Of course it drove him mad, made him unpredictable. But I think Magarathea is the key here. We just have to persuade her that she wants to come and help us out."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Natasha asked, and Adam looked at her brightly.
"I'm not," he said. "You are. The same way you enticed Eckhart."
*****
There was no point in pretending that Magarathea didn't know where Sanctuary was, information that she would sell, should the price be high enough. Adam was confident of the new security systems, though, so he invited her to come at her own convenience. She had stared silently at him over the vid unit for some time before accepting with suspiciously little argument, even so far as agreeing to bring the little healer child with her.
She arrived with little fanfare, waiting at the foot of the mountain for an invitation in a plain black Trans Am. Just her and the child.
Lowering the camouflage shield and raising the garage door was invitation enough and Adam met them inside the garage. He was suspicious of the fact that Magarathea, a known mercenary, had not asked for so much as a sou to come out here and help his team. He had to deal with that first before letting the child that clung to her trousers anywhere near his team, for while he would sell his soul to the devil himself to save any one of them, it was in all their best interests to at least try and negotiate a deal. But he was all too aware that he held all the low cards at this table.
And Magarathea was not going to play. She refused to negotiate, saying only that Adam would owe her a favour that she would collect in the not too distant future. She was emotionless and intractable and he soon had to give in.
*****
Adam didn't like being kept out of anything, much less by a pair of dubious mercenaries with unknown motives claiming to be able to heal one of his team members. However, Magarathea's explanation was that while she could push Emma's defensive shields up for them to heal her, it was imperative that there be as few people as possible close enough to distract them.
And heal her the child would have to do, for while Magarathea could regress each of the four mutant's abilities back to their original state even from a distance under normal circumstances, damage had been done by the continued stress on their bodies and minds which meant that the regression and healing had to be performed in a delicate conjunction with each other.
So Adam asked Natasha to keep an eye on them as best she could through the computers even though he was certain that whatever was going on in there would be beyond the cyber-psionic's scope.
Magarathea seemed to be under some considerable strain, but Emma remained calm as the pod was opened this time. The child laid hands glowing a soft blue at Emma's temples and, although the process was slow, Magarathea's efforts became increasingly unnecessary until at last, Emma opened her eyes. A few words passed between Emma and Magarathea, and then Adam was in the room while Magarathea took the child away to the living area to eat and rest.
Naturally, Adam put an exhausted Emma through a gamut of tests, doing his utmost to make sure she was safe. He badly wanted to reassure her, reassure himself with some tactile gesture, a hug, or at least a supporting squeeze of her arm but, as she seemed understandably reticent and oversensitive, he refrained, feeling somewhat surreally out of touch.
*****
It wasn't too much later that Magarathea deemed the child rested enough to work on Brennan, although there was no mention of her own exhaustion. The austere woman had decided that Shalimar and Jesse needed to be worked upon together, and the child would therefore need a good deal more rest before attempting to help them.
For someone who seemed so cold and emotionless, Magarathea showed a lot of care and concern for the youngster, whose name had not been given. The child itself was frail and androgynous, although Adam had the impression that it was a little boy who looked to be about seven or eight, although could well be older.
Brennan was slumped on the cot that had been moved into the dojo for him. The force field prevented his escape, so he spent the time taking pot shots at imaginary cockroaches. With Emma back on her feet, if uncharacteristically quiet, Adam acceded to her request to be allowed to join them.
As they entered the training area Brennan surged to his feet, the arrogant expression making his dark features almost cruel, and it occurred to Adam then that the elemental was not one he would like to meet as a true enemy.
With Emma in the middle, Adam and Magarathea watched the child approach the dojo, Magarathea having assured Adam that the force field was no obstacle. Indeed, the child walked straight through, and Brennan didn't seem to know how to deal with this unthreatening being.
While Magarathea's eyes closed and her head bowed in concentration, working from where she stood, the child held its hand out and, hesitantly, warily, Brennan took it. The glow began and instantly Brennan yelped, pulling roughly away. But the child held on, physically unmoved, rooted as surely as the mountain.
Lightening crackled in the air around them, and while the child's face remained placid, Brennan's contorted in agony as he fell to his knees. The energy built up around them to such a phenomenal extent that Adam hastily checked the monitors for weaknesses in the powerful force field. The sound and light show built to crescendo, reverberating through the very bedrock until with a sharp, bright crack, it stopped, leaving everyone momentarily blind and deafened by the silence.
As soon as the black spots started to dissipate, Adam saw Brennan slumped on the floor and the child already back with Magarathea. He switched off the force field and Emma ran to the elemental, kneeling on the floor and cradling his head in her lap.
Adam checked him over and, from a casual inspection, he seemed only stunned. He would give the elemental the full barrage of tests as he had with Emma of course, but for the moment it only remained to make sure that he recovered from the mental and physical healing assault he'd just been through. Hearing a moan and a curse from the semi-conscious Brennan, Adam breathed in relief.
The tall mutant's eyelids fluttered open and he smiled up at Emma. When his eyes fell upon Adam, however, he flinched away slightly, and the older man could hardly blame him. If the young man had any recollection of past events, he must be feeling both angry and guilty at the very least.
So Adam just smiled understandingly and persuaded Brennan that he needed to be checked over properly.
*****
To be continued.