New ficlet up at sorciere.freeservers.com / journey / index.html - a humorous, little tale about the Guardians, written by Rascal. Go read ^^

A/N 1: As in the previous chapters – ideas for fic and character development, questions, plotbunnies, suggestions, flames, character pictures, corrections, additions, comments, and everything in between can be mailed to hack_heaven@usa.net

A/N 2: Rascal: Ahhh...but who says Rina *is* naïve? The problem is that Sergey is a mutant...but nobody quite knows what his mutation is, only that he is suspiciously good at getting people to do as he says...*smirk*

Sabrin: All in due time, dear...^^

Italics indicates thoughts/telepathy

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Eleventh Interlude: Dark Horizons

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A constant, low rumble. That was the first thing that registered in Deirdre's groggy mind. A constant, low rumble...an engine? She tried to get her mind to cooperate, but was met only with the heavy drowsiness characteristic of someone who had just woken up from a long nap.

An engine, yeah...but too deep a rumble to be a car. A plane, maybe? Yeah, it sounded like...

...Wait - what was she doing on a plane?

Deirdre frowned and tried to think, but her mind was too blurry to be of much help. Fragments of something - fire; guns; screaming; someone running - but when she tried to focus on it, the only result was the beginning of a headache.

Annoyed with the lack of cooperation from her mind, Deirdre focused on the surroundings instead. A mattress. She was lying on a hard mattress. Not hard enough to be uncomfortable, but too hard to be used for sleeping. Slowly, she tried to open her eyes and ignored the faint discomfort as she did so.

A room - white plastic-like walls and brightly lit, making her eyes hurt and forced her to close them again. Deirdre tried to raise one of her arms to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes but found it impossible. She tried again, and this time her suspicions were confirmed - restrains, not metal but some sort of fabric, keeping her hands strapped down.

Deirdre felt a kick of adrenaline at that discovery, pushing away the haziness of sleep and making her memories return.

The FoH.

They'd been capture by the FoH at the checkpoint in Chicago, she realized with a shudder. She remember the fighting, the sudden silence, the faint sting of a needle piercing her skin...and then nothing as the drugs had kicked in, knocking her unconscious.

Deirdre tried to pull in the restrains, test their strength, but the only result of her efforts was a thundering headache as her tired body complained about her aggressive behavior. Part of her wanted to keep fighting, but the other, more logical part knew that it would accomplish nothing but draining her last remaining strength.

She sighed quietly and tried to relax and give her body the rest it deserved. Despite the graveness of the situation, it wasn't hard - the effects of the drugs were still strong and easily overcame the tenseness she felt.

Deirdre wasn't sure how long she lay there in a state between sleep and awareness. Everything seemed to blend together - minutes and seconds joined her thundering headache and the rumbling of the engines in an almost hypnotic effect, giving the world around Deirdre a blurry, distorted feel. It could have been seconds, minutes, even hours - she didn't know - but finally something managed to get through the low, continuous rumbling.

Footsteps.

Footsteps, and then the low mumbling of voices.

And they were coming closer.

Deirdre concentrated on the sound and slowly dragged herself out of the trance-like state she'd ended up in. Even through the drug-induced grogginess, she realized something - if she wanted any chance of escaping, she would need to know a bit about what was going on. And with a little luck, eavesdropping would give her some useful information.

"...Seen the blood-samples, and I don't understand why we're wasting time and resources to transport beta-level mutants all this way," a female voice said, finally audible through the engine-noise. "Only alpha-levels belong in that camp."

"They *do* have a low-level security wing," the other voice, this one male, reminded her. "That camp is also used for beta-levels from the surrounding area."

The footsteps stopped a bit away from Deirdre, and she tried to take a look around, but her eyes were still too sensitive to handle the strong light.

"But transporting them all the way from Chicago, which is only weeks away from completing the first of their planned camps? It's a waste of resources - Chicago has several prisons that are more than capable of housing a group of beta-levels for a few weeks," the female argued. There was a faint sound of metal against metal, but try as she might, Deirdre was unable to figure out what was going on.

"But it's not your decision, doctor," the male reminded his companion, almost amused. "But yes, I agree. In a normal case, this would be a waste of resources. In this case, however, the beta-levels were caught with the alpha-levels. They seem to have been travelling together for a while."

"And you didn't have the heart to separate them?" the female mocked. Unlike the male, her voice was hard, uncaring, and Deirdre shivered at the thought that someone so cold could call herself a doctor.

"It has nothing to do with emotions," the male replied, his amusement gone. "We know from experience that mutants in groups are usually intensely loyal to each other. If the beta-levels were put in a low-level security camp and managed to escape, they would be likely to attempt to rescue their friends."

A moment of silence, followed by the strange sound of metal against metal, before the female replied.

"I see," she admitted. "I guess you're right...a possible rescue attempt could cause some serious trouble, even for a high security camp."

"For a doctor, you're pretty cold-blooded," the man remarked. "I'm amazed no one has tried to make an officer out of you yet."

"I don't like mutants, but I like weapons even less," the woman replied, taking a few steps closer to Deirdre. "I am still a doctor - my job is to save lives, not destroy them."

The man followed her, his footsteps easy to hear even through the low rumble.

"And you're a good doctor," he admitted.

Metal against metal once again, and what *was* that sound? Deirdre frowned, her thoughts interrupted by the female again.

"I take it that your arm is doing better?" she asked, kinder, less cold this time.

"Yeah...," the man replied. "It hurt like a bitch for the first couple of hours, but now there's just this faint throbbing."

"It will pass soon," his companion promised. "And with a little luck, the burn-mark won't leave too bad a scar."

"Sounds good," the man said, the grin obvious in his voice. "I like my arm the way it is."

The two moved closer, stopping beside Deirdre, and the girl felt her body tense at the suddenly closeness to the two humans. Again the faint sound of metal against metal could be heard, and too late did Deirdre realize what it was.

She felt the needle press against the soft skin of her right arm, and her heart began to beat frantically as her mind reacted to the prospect of another injection. She tried to move, to get away from the syringe, but her body was still too weak to do anything. The needle pierced her skin, sending a new dose of the drugs into Deirdre's blood, and the girl fell unconscious once more.

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