Disclaimer It's all somebody elses. No money made. Suing will profit no one.
Want? Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
His first clue, when he'd finally gotten back after waiting out the rain shower around three a.m., was the note tacked on his door telling him the de-briefing would take place in the lab in the morning. Should have started packing then, but he was so damn tired he'd just fallen into bed. The second clue came in the morning when Jesse didn't pound on his door to get him up, instead leaving him to wake up with fifteen minutes to spare. Not enough time to get lucid, let alone hotwire the Double Helix and head down to Mexico.
Busted. So very busted.
As he walked into the lab, wrapped in his great coat and hands gloved with the only skin visible around his eyes, Brennan went for nonchalant towards the four pairs of eyes staring at him with identical intervention gleams. He spoke, voice muffled behind the thick scarf.
"What? Got something on my face?"
"Brennan ... "
The half tolerant, half amused tone in Emma's voice didn't have entirely the effect she had been hoping for. Rather than cajoling him closer, Brennan lingered in the doorway as if he were ready to turn and run at a moment's notice. Half his wardrobe appeared to be under the coat, his normally lean frame was bearing more of a resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy than anything else, and bright blue eyes were widening with a kind of panic.
Since when did their resident back-up generator, as Jesse called him, have blue eyes.
She took a step forward; he took an automatic step back into the corridor. This was getting them nowhere.
Adam's voice came calmly from beside her, but she couldn't follow the meaning of his words as she tried to concentrate on synching with her team mate's psyche, trying to find any way to calm him, understand, anything. It has been easy once; she had latched onto him half trained, running in terror and with no idea of who he was. She'd done it again when Genomex had taken him, and last when he had been dying as his organs slowly dissolved. It should have been the work of a moment to get the rapport she was named for, but instead it was like sliding off opaque glass that was doing a roller coaster impression.
There were vague shapes in her minds eye, hazy and blurring further even as she tried to grip them in the dizzy spin. Somehow he was pushing her back, or just evading her, but it clearly wasn't deliberate. It wasn't even something he should have had the ability to do, but his mind, his emotions, were quicksilver to her.
Something dark was uncoiling towards her, darkening the edges of her vision and catching her breath in her throat. It wasn't Brennan, not anymore. And in a body capable of cooking a chicken from frozen in four seconds, there was no control at all. None.
"... and you have to let us help you. Whatever it is, we can deal with it."
Jesse crossed his arms and leaned back against the panel of flashing lights, reasonably sure he wouldn't be called upon to drag anyone kicking and biting in. It seemed to be going well enough, Brennan was edging into the room, movements a little jerky, but at least not just brushing them off again.
Shalimar nodded encouragingly at the end of Adam's sincere appeal to Brennan, taking her own readiness to leap at him for his own good down a notch, relaxing by degrees. So she wasn't expecting Emma to launch herself at her, falling under the weight of the other woman with a startled croak as the air rushed from her lungs. Instinct to retaliate warred with instinct to cause no harm to her team-mate for a moment as her sight took on a sharper view and her eyes became the burning orbs of a tiger's.
Then the electric pulse went over their heads and she gave up trying to breathe in favour of rolling to shield Emma from the suddenly flying debris and shower of bright sparks from million-dollar equipment that was now worth a whole lot less. Somewhere above her she heard someone cry out, but it was distorted, her sensitive hearing disabled for the moment by the concussive force. It could even have been her, and it didn't seem the blast would ever stop.
"Ah, Ms Riley."
Mason Eckhart looked up from his computer screen as his latest and, he had to grudgingly admit, most promising aide de camp approached his desk.
"Tell me some ... excellent ... news."
Jude smiled, the tight lipped and polite expression she had discovered it best to use when Eckhart was in this particular mood. A smile with just a hint of cruelty, just a hint of cunning, and exactly the right amount of blind stupidity that ensured you didn't rate as a risk. Of course, in her experience, some agents had really taken the last bit of common sense a touch too far; it was such a privilege to watch Darwinian notion at work in a closed environment though. Who was she to complain?
"Every stage so far has been completed precisely as projected."
She began to hand over the clip board with its heavy load of paper, every little bit of information on her assigned project there was. Eckhart was legendary for noticing even a single requisition form missing if it was to do with his pet obsession of Mutant X, let alone the details of something as important as this.
He waved it away and sat back in his chair, folding his arms as he regarded her thoughtfully. She kept her expression perfectly neutral, waiting for him to speak.
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to read through that, give me a summary, if you would."
A tiny nod and she had to give a slight smile. Of course he would read through it, later. This was a test, to see how well she was prepared, how fast she could adapt. Everything was a test of worthiness, even for those like her.
"As anticipated, members of Mutant X broke into the Gen-Core facility and extracted the information we planted. In the process, we were able to infect an item of their clothing with X-287 and Doctor Allerage estimates that they will begin to show symptoms within twenty four hours of exposure."
She paused, giving her boss a moment to gloat in before she continued with the less stellar news. It wasn't a complete disaster, but Eckhart had no shades of grey, there was success, or there was failure.
"The signal of the tracer program that was hidden in the information has not yet been picked up, but I have been assured by the technical department that it is only a matter of time, the worm that was attached to it has already begun returning data so their location will undoubtedly follow."
There was the scowl, but she smiled and continued on regardless, certain of just one thing. He needed her. The technical department may well be subjected to a sudden and surgical re-shuffle, but for the moment she was safe. There wasn't nearly enough rope for her to hang herself yet, for a start.
"There has been one interesting anomaly, which may represent a wild-card factor in this operation."
The scowl became an arched eyebrow of interest. If nothing else, Mason Eckhart certainly seemed to have a morbid fascination with things going wrong. His pessimism was well enough justified, but the light in his eyes behind the yellow-tinted Andy Warhol glasses was still a little disconcerting in it's sudden sharp attention. His voice was a, restrained, near purr.
"Do tell."
She unconsciously ran her tongue quickly over dry lips; this was where the report got tricky. Even with the fifteen minutes warning she was wanted in the office, she still wasn't sure what slant to put on the information.
"It seems one of the members of Mutant X may have already contracted X-287 somehow. He is showing signs of the early stages; although it's possible the evolution is natural. It seems unlikely, however. And ... he is the Elemental of the team."
"Mr Mulwray?" Eckhart nodded the answer to his own rhetorical question. "In the short time I had his company, I did have the chance to note he was a near compulsively contrary young man. Must be those regrettable criminal impulses. Naturally, he would have to make things difficult now."
There was silence for a long moment, Eckhart thinking as Jude cleared her thoughts and expression and starred straight ahead like the good employee she was trying so hard to be.
"Given we've already ascertained Elementals cannot carry the virus, only catch it, I think it is safe to assume he will not be a factor in this. However, should the opportunity present itself, feel free to remove him from the equation."
It seemed the meeting was over, she nodded once and walked back towards the door as he once more turns his attention to the computer screen.
Jesse blinked slowly; his eyes felt like they were full of glue as he bought a hand up to clear them and only received a greater stinging sensation for his trouble. It took him a moment to realise that might just be because he was rubbing the blood from a dozen small cuts into them. Vaguely the memory came of holding up his hands to protect his face in the second before he had managed to take on the density of rock and cover Adam as best he could.
It was still dark when he at last managed to blink out the last of the gunk from watering eyes, and for a panicked moment he thought he was blind before focus slowly came and he realised that, for the first time, he was seeing Sanctuary completely powered down. Of course it was dark, they lived in a glorified cave. Slowly, bit-by-bit, he tried to piece together what had happened as he slowly began to move. Emma had dived at Shalimar first; he remembered that because it had made him freeze for a moment. Right. Getting somewhere. Then ... then ... Brennan had turned to run, faster than anything he'd ever seen. It had been like a blur, not a man, unless that was a concussion playing tricks. But he hadn't run fast enough because then ... well, it got hazy after things started exploding. He'd held his density as long as he could, but it had gone on for so long. Longer than he could hold his breath, and then he and Adam both must have been knocked down and he'd entered the happy world of being out for the count.
Adam. Shalimar. Emma. Brennan.
He made it to his hands and knees, not daring to move further in case he trod on someone. He could hear breathing, that was a good sign, and it was the deep, even, breath of sleep rather than the shallow rattle of the injured. Even better.
To his left, a patch of shadow moved a touch. He whispered, though for the life of him he didn't know why. It wasn't like those sleeping wouldn't want to be woken.
"Adam?"
"Jesse?"
That was Adam's voice. A rush of relief went through him; his lack of control over his powers hadn't killed anyone. It didn't even occur to him Brennan might be thinking exactly the same thing, or even to throw the blame at another he was so ready to berate himself for. Right now, he just wanted a sound off to know everyone was okay.
"You hurt?"
"No. No, I'm fine, I think. Emma? Shalimar? Brennan?"
Adam's tone was steady; none of the fear or desperation Jesse knew had been in his own. Probably best to let him take over, especially with the smell of smoke still heavy in the air, Shalimar at least would appreciate the calm.
"A-Adam?"
Emma.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I don't think so. But I can't move, I think Shal is covering me, and she's not conscious."
Adam listened to Emma's pitch rising from the mumbling of the newly conscious to the suddenly awake and quickly distressed. He felt the fear rise, and ruthlessly quelled it, keeping his tone even and in control.
"Take a pulse, she's probably fine."
There was a terrible moment of silence as Emma tried to take a pulse without jarring the other woman too greatly. If there were broken bones, she didn't want to make then any worse. She breathed out her relief with her words, as hushed as Jesse's had been.
"Pulse, strong and steady. I'm going to try and move her and check for injury."
Adam finally stood; reasonably sure he was unlikely to step on anyone. Brennan, he remembered, had been near the door some fifteen feet away. He felt Jesse rise to his feet beside him, and he knew both of them were looking at the still form in the doorway.
"I'm going to try and get the back-up generator working, we need light. Jesse ...?"
In the darkness he just about saw Jesse's head turn to him, eyes glittering black in the last embers of the dying sparks.
"Yeah?"
"See if you can find some sedatives, I don't think we want a repeat of that any time soon."
Notes
A no-prize to the folks that spotted the token cultural reference and pop-culture reference in chapter 2. Your choice as to whether Brennan had watched Andromeda, or read Nietzsche ::grins::