+ Month 3

Proxy Blue's image was back to the blue with the smug half smile. "What's going on out there, people? My mailboxes are practically empty. With the extended outbreak of 'not very much going on anywhere', this girl is thinking that maybe it's time for a vacation. Lemme see, Cuba, Kuwait, Mali, oh wait, no. I'm trying to holiday away from a dictatorship. What happened to democracy? Does anyone even know where the Constitution's kept these days? If anyone got off their fat asses long enough to gossip, there'd be rumours of Prozac in the water supply. Come on, you guys, I need to bitch!"

*****

Lena grinned at Nora. She'd been using the backup server for the last few weeks, just in case she was being traced. But now that she felt secure, she'd accessed the main server. The only thing missing was Darius. In some ways it was a good thing that there wasn't so much mail coming in, or she'd never have been able to handle it by herself before hooking up with Nora. She'd collate and verify all the snippets then Darius, with his talent for ad-hoc speeches, provided the wit, sarcasm and innuendo that Proxy was known for. Nora was better than she could ever have hoped for, but she wasn't Darius. That said, her tech skills made Darius' look like pre-school.

There was a huge unexpected bonus of Proxy Blue hooking up with a Cyberteam unit. By using some snippets that Proxy had picked up over the last year or so, and putting them together with clues embedded in Nora's system, they picked up a cache of data that could only have come from the Cyberteam Central Control.

It had taken Nora a while to decrypt it, and in the end it turned out to be just a glorified signpost, pointing the way to different caches with different types of data. Nothing meant anything to Lena, but Nora was quite convinced that one of the pointer's was meant for any Cyberteam member.  What amused Nora, as she got further in, was that there was a coded list of all the Cyberteam members, with a risk rating. It seemed that the less the team leader had trusted you, the harder it was to break the encryption. And, while Nora wasn't the most trusted, she was only a short way down the list so it was relatively easy for her gain access. Both women were amazed at the size of Cyberteam. Being so tightly compartmentalized, Nora had thought there were only a handful of them working. With over a hundred units initially, and nearly a hundred still running, it was somewhat less surprising as to why Cyberteam had kept going, albeit somewhat fragmented.

And every last one would respond to the one who gave them the all clear as the new Central Control.

*****

It was quite by accident that Adam discovered a familiar figure sitting by the small indoor pond, meditating. At first he thought it was just a case of déjà vu, yet couldn't resist looking closer.

"Hello, Adam." Emma greeted him coolly without opening her eyes, and her bodyguard stepped in front of her to prevent him getting any nearer.

"Emma." Adam was stunned. "What are you, I mean…" He trailed off, mind in a whirl. He'd thought she'd been sent to one of the freak farms and hadn't expected to see her again, least of all here.

"Surprised to see me?" Emma said, still cool and calm, without moving. "Thought I was dead?"

"I- uh,"

"Shows how wrong you can be," she continued.

"What's going on here?" Morrisen suddenly thundered into the area.

"This man is bothering me, sir." Emma said. "Can I go back now?"

Morrisen nodded at the bodyguard who escorted the psionic away, and Adam looked inquiringly at the other man.

"You know full well that I think mutants have their uses," Morrisen snapped, "so don't look at me like that."

"And how do I, do we know she's not manipulating us right now?" Adam's increasingly short temper was beginning to fray.

"You don't," Morrisen told him. "But I do. And I will promise you, Kane, that if I let them fuck with your mind, I'll make damned sure it's hard and fast."

"You're too generous." Sarcastic, but backing down, as Morrisen held all the advantages. He was playing a dangerous game, each man disliking the other but needing him, the one for his knowledge, the other for his power.

"Them? You have more than one?" Adam asked.

"A small circle," replied Morrisen, lighting up a cigar. "But I want you to forget all about it. Now, I've been considering, and I think I might be able to get you into a small cubby hole in LexMor."

Funny how fast some people could change their minds, thought Adam, but said, "That's wonderful, thank you so much."

*****

Brennan had slept for a long time after they'd made their escape from the power station. Although escape might've been glorifying it a little since it was simply a case of no one stopping them as they hobbled out. One guard had waved a gun around, but Eckhart had remarked that he really didn't want to do that. The guard had shrugged, said okay, put his gun away and gone back to looking at his HotXtream magazine.

Passing out in the car, Brennan had no recollection of getting to the bed in the large third story apartment. But he did know that Eckhart was not exactly the world's best nurse, working on the principle that when Brennan was hungry enough he'd come looking.

Which was why, after three straight days, Brennan had woken up weak as a kitten on top of the still twitching skin and monumental headache. But Eckhart had been right, inasmuch as Brennan had helped himself to whatever he could get his hands on and took himself back to bed for another day of perhaps more normal sleep.

When he'd awoken properly he'd almost felt back to normal, apart from odd muscle spasm. The apartment he was in, however, was most peculiar. It was spacious; he found three bedrooms all en suite, a fully equipped kitchen and a large living room. His poor, fried brain could cope with that part. It could just about handle the state of the art computer set up that took up most of one wall, and the cardboard boxes of cash that were stacked up in a corner. But what nearly sent him gibbering over the edge into madness was the polythene that covered absolutely everything, including being tucked neatly around the seat in the john, and what seemed to be a bedraggled Mason Eckhart talking animatedly to himself.

It didn't take him long to figure out that Eckhart really wasn't himself and, as a painful spasm overtook him, he thought that they were the sick looking after the sicker. And that seemed quite funny as he dropped to knees, laughing around the cramps.

Eckhart stopped his one way debate and leaned down. "Are you quite all right? And…" He looked about. "What are you doing here?"

Brennan looked up in smiling surprise. "I kinda thought that's what you might tell me."

"What? Oh, yes, well…" The older man continued his rather vague perusal of his surroundings. "Let me see. First thing is, we really need to get this place cleaned up, I simply cannot function in such a, a dirty environment. You didn't see any rats did you?"

"Er, no. And it's pretty sterile, I'd say." Brennan picked himself up.

"Don't come near me!" Eckhart shrieked, leaping back a pace.

"Okay, I won't." Brennan raised his hands showing he was no threat. "Tell you what, I'll thank you for your hospitality, and just leave, okay? This is obviously a bad time for you."

"Yes, yes do that, thank you. No! No, you have to stay, I have something, there's something we have to do."

"Nothing like knowing what you want," Brennan said, wondering when the Alice would turn up with the White Rabbit in tow.

"You, you're, er… Mutant X." He waved towards the computer. "Find them. I need to go lie down."

Since then, Brennan had discovered that Eckhart wasn't in his right mind very often, but when he was he made a warped kind of sense. He was trying to resurrect Mutant X to fight his battles so that he could have a place in the world to call home. Very sad, but very true, and although there were probably better things that either of them could be doing with their time, Brennan was more than happy to help Eckhart find the surviving members of the team, even if for different reasons. Because while Eckhart wanted a strike force, Brennan wanted his family back.

There was one small fly in the ointment. In one of his more lucid moments, Eckhart had been able to trip the SGFlex. The design had become more refined so that it no longer needed a special gun to apply or deactivate. Unfortunately, Brennan's experience in the pod seemed to have done something to him, and the instant the SGFlex was disabled he was screaming in pain as his electrical bolts fired off uncontrollably. How Eckhart had gotten away with just a mild shock was anyone's guess. Perhaps all that rubber and polythene.

Without the technology of the pod to regulate the flow, he eventually burned out and when he came to, Eckhart had re-activated the SGFlex. Between them, they found a setting where Brennan had some control, but felt as though he was right back where he started when his powers first developed, when they were just about strong enough to hot wire a car if he pushed it to the max.

Trying now to forget about his problems, Brennan concentrated on his friends. Adam was the most prominent, but Eckhart was quite insistent that the girls had to be retrieved before dealing with him, and if half of what Eckhart was telling him between the nonsensical ramblings was true, then Brennan could find no fault in that. Unfortunately on the face of it, there was no sign of either of the girls, although Brennan didn't let that deter him for the moment, as Eckhart's hacking skills were not a patch on his own. Speaking of which, Jesse was the only other member who was visible, and Eckhart had already tried and failed there. Well, right now Brennan was more able than the older man in all departments. Mentally and physically, but also sneakily, and he was quite determined that Jesse wasn't going to say no to him.

*****

"Are you sure you have to leave, Chiqua?" Paulo asked mournfully.

Shalimar packed the meagre belongings Paulo had bullied out of his men for her - a change of clothes and some currency, although she left the pistol untouched. "Yeah," she said without looking up. "I've been out of it for too long." She was fit now, although the visions and nightmares were still pretty wild, and since Paulo had negotiated a transport back north for her she was itching to go.

Paulo nodded. "I have a little surprise for you?"

Shalimar shook her head. "You've done way more then enough. Especially for someone you regard as a monster."

"Ah, but that is where you're wrong." She looked up as he continued. "See, we've only met but one of the mutant threat." Shalimar pointed to herself and he nodded. "And well, you are not so bad, nice to look at, and you give good argument for why mutants are not necessarily such a bad thing. Not all of my men agree, but enough maybe."

Shalimar was a little surprised. Some of the men, those who'd wanted her shot, never stopped looking at her with distrust and hatred. The rest, including Paulo, treated her with caution and respect but never fear, although she and Paulo had spent days arguing about the mutant versus human.

"Enough for what?" she asked.

"To come with you, of course. We have no ties here. Not until we find a good woman to settle us down. It would be good to see what all the fuss is about, to lend our arms where needed." Paulo shrugged. "I may not own you, Chiquita, but I'll not give up so easily."

She opened her mouth to object, but saw the quietly determined set to his jaw. "Thanks," she said, nodding. "That would be good."

*****