+ Month 2

"Do you ever feel that what you're feeling isn't quite what you think you should be feeling? Exactly where are the camps the psionics were sent to? Photographs were leaked to the New York Times yesterday showing that well-known shadowy Senator, William Morrisen, having lunch with one of the co-founders of the mutant age, along with older evidence of cosy chats with the other co-founder, Mason Eckhart. In a press release today, he explained his covert meetings away as strictly business, smoothing out the takeover of Genomex, and, with Eckhart's subsequent disappearance, taking advice from Kane on dispersal of assets. But, you know what? Nobody cares. Keep the stories coming, I need the excitement."

*****

Emma loved to fly.

Without having to rely on mechanical craft that could let her down, send her plummeting to the ground, she was free to fly as took her fancy. Six ghosts at her side took strength from her, but gave it back tenfold in differing ways. With the solid shield around her, she could pick and choose the minds that she wanted to play with.

They weren't real to her, not tangible human beings, but rather programmable puppets awaiting commands from her and her sisters. Joined, they shared each others skills and she knew what it was to slide through cables and dance with bytes as Cyber did.  And not only could she feel emotions, or push a man to love a woman, she could draw on Path's skills to put words in his mouth, or Kin's to put a flower in his hand. The seven of them played in the realm of the psi, laughing, having fun and playing tricks at whim, flitting from one puppet to the next and back, or flying through mindscapes that defied description.

A blip and one of her tagged puppets seemed to be having a spike of guilt and trepidation. Cog looked and confirmed what the puppet's current line of fate would do. The owner would need to know about this so, using Path's link to him, Emma told him that Adam Kane was plotting.

The returning spike of anger fuelled her own anger, and she felt her sisters unite in their shared rage. The owner did not appreciate the work they did for him. He supplied the machine, but they were so much more than the metal and wires that held them, and while he'd given them a freedom he didn't know, he was keeping them captive.

Growing in strength as each day went by, the Psionic Circle nurtured their resentment and rage towards their owner, knowing that the day would soon be upon them that they'd have their revenge. But until then, they were slaves to that owner's whim.

*****

All men in white coats looked the same and Eckhart found that that was no different when it came to scientific engineers in power stations. He liked the white coat he'd stolen. It had clearly been laundered in a sterile unit, and it was clean. A surgical mask had helped to disguise his face enough that the scabs weren't noticeable, and a stolen pass ensured he had a certain freedom of movement through the place.

The brief time he'd been able to gain on the computer at Langley's place had been invaluable. It had surprised him greatly at the time that parental controls had been put in place for the Kilmartin boy, but that had made sense as soon as he'd realised that while the boy's lights were on, clearly no one was home. All he'd done whilst on that machine was transfer some cash from a small Genomex slush fund, normally reserved for field agents' ad-hoc expenses, that no one had seen fit to block him from. He'd wired it to himself, and now had a modest apartment and a desktop with net access.

His subsequent research showed no sign of any of the three girls that he needed, but using his rusty hacking skills he'd managed to track Brennan Mulwray down to this plant. He even had a grid number for Mulwray, even if he wasn't entirely sure what a grid number was. 

He soon found out, and actually admired the design of the place. Not nearly as efficient as he could have done, of course, but it was passable and kept beautifully sterile. Discovering that the grid number gave him the exact location of Mulwray's pod, he shut it down and unlocked it.

"Oh joy," he muttered, having no idea how to transport Mulwray out and thinking that perhaps this should be regarded as a dry run, that maybe he could find a couple of convenient thugs and come back tomorrow. It wasn't as if the place was exactly high security. "The last one was insensible and this one's incapable. Things are never easy, are they?"

"'M not incapable," Brennan muttered.

"Oh, more joy, it speaks." Eckhart couldn't help himself.

Brennan really couldn't drag up the energy or brainpower for wit today. He recognised Eckhart, and he recognised that not only was the pod open, but that the horrible 'nails on a blackboard' excruciatingly violent sucking of his electrical energy had vanished. It left him weak and cold and shaking and fucking exhausted.

He didn't give a shit why Eckhart was letting him out, just accepted that he was. And if the man wanted him to walk out of here on legs that didn't know which way was up, then by God, he'd do it.

Anything to get out of that pod of horrors.

*****

"I need to get out of here," Shalimar told Paulo, looking about the forest as though a cab might pull up at any second.

"No, no, Chiquita, you cannot leave me," Paulo told her. "You will stay here, and you will come to care for me in time."

"What?" Shalimar screeched. This was the first time something like that had been said. "You can't keep me here, and certainly not for… not for that. I'm not yours, I don't belong to anyone!"

"Calm down," Paulo said to the young woman whose eyes were blazing gold in fury as she backed away from him. She wouldn't touch him if she could help it, couldn't touch anyone without feeling dead blood crawling over her skin, but she would do just about anything for her freedom.

"Ah, but Chiquita, you must see my problem. I have seen you naked, and in my culture that makes you mine. Now, I am not a bad man, and do not believe it is wise to force a woman. To the contrary, I believe a woman should be cherished, for she will bear my children. But you must believe that you are mine."

"No!" Pushed by words into angry reflex, faster than humanly possible, Shalimar had her arm round his throat and his gun at his head. "I will not be anyones! I have spent the last few years of my life fighting for my freedom and rights as a mutant. I will not now be chained for being a woman!"

The other men in the camp were looking, drawing back from her in fear, and it slowly dawned on Shalimar that she was seeing detail, extreme detail as she did when her feral nature came to the fore. Her eyes must be gold, scaring them, and she must have moved feral fast, maybe growled.  But whatever, she'd scared them. The governor must have given up the ghost, because though she could still feel the ache at her neck her powers were back.

She tightened her grip, frightened that they'd try and cage her with more than words.

"Relax, Chiquita," Paulo said eventually with a long sigh. "You have made your point and I will help you get back to fight your fight."

Considering a moment, she decided that he'd been brutally honest with her so far and there no reason to think that might have changed. She started to let him go, but then realized what it was she held in her hand, saw the blood and the gray crawling up her hands and arms.  She dropped the firearm, scratching at her skin to get rid of it, but it was trying to crawl up over her shoulder, across her neck  and into her mouth, threatening to drown her.

And then Paulo was there, holding her arms, preventing her from hurting herself. He couldn't know what she saw, but he told her it wasn't real and, as she had many times over the last few weeks, she believed him and sank weakly to the ground.

*****

Langley watched Jesse working out from the doorway. He really was a lovely sight and an absolutely perfect toy to take to functions, always at her side, quiet, polite and echoing her opinions, performing tricks as she bade him. But so many others had pet mutants these days, and the fact that hers was not only from one of the East Coast Families but also rumoured to have founded the renegade Cyberteam was growing stale.

And more than that, she was bored. He didn't have a mind of his own and she was getting sick of the constant agreement. One of the main reasons she'd gone into politics was the love of debate, of being challenged, and it wasn't like she had much other stimulating company in her household. Except Raymond, but he always smelled of dogs.

She wished Jesse were more like Noah had been.

Or rather, she wished that Raymond hadn't had to train the spirit out of him. At her summoning, Raymond appeared next her, and she voiced her complaints.

"You want a man who knows himself," he said quietly. "Not him."

She sighed and nodded. "Of course I do, but what man in his right mind would look twice at this old hag?"

A shadow of longing passed so quickly over Raymond's face that she wondered if she'd seen it at all. He nodded at Jesse who was bench pressing under the watchful eye of his trainer. "You can have a man or you can have a dog. There is no in between."

"Perhaps a feral?" she snorted. "I'd hoped that giving him limited computer access might instigate some interest in something other than me. Because while it's very flattering, it's also very tiresome."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but there's nothing left of his mind." Raymond did sound truly apologetic. "Perhaps a telepath could make some modifications, but my teleblocks block all or nothing."

"I know, Raymond, I know. He was a computer geek before, so try teaching him some IT skills the same way you taught him to love me, would you? Perhaps he can learn."

"I can but try, Ma'am," Raymond sighed, and they both knew that it would make no difference.

*****

Lena knocked on the door of a woman that she was certain was part of Cyberteam. An androgynous young person answered with punk spiked hair and what, to her eye, looked like denim rags. The instant she asked for Nora251, however, the punk tried to close the door on her.

Used to such moves, Lena already had the door wedged open and, as the punk gave way, slipped inside herself, closing the door. The punk was halfway out the bathroom window when Lena grabbed the belt of her jeans and pulled her back.

"I need to see Nora 251 because I need help, and only the kind of help that Cyberteam can give me."

After a moment, the punk spoke warily. "S'me." Nora looked her up and down critically. "Cyberteam ain't around anymore."

"Now I know that's not true because I've been talking to you," Lena said, folding her arms.

Nora wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Well, who are you anyway?"

Lena bit her lip as she considered. She'd never spoken of this to anyone but Darius, and felt as if she were about to expose herself naked in Times Square. But as she was asking Nora to come clean she could only offer the same in return.

"You use a dedicated mailbox for communication with us that we assigned you. CBT176287."

Nora's eyes widened in shock. "You're Proxy Blue?"

*****