PART 6
"Adam, we've got something!" Shalimar's excitement seemed to precede her into Adam's office, sweeping him up in its fervour and carrying him back to the lab with her almost without the need for conscious thought on his part.
Emma was talking quietly to Connie when they got there, probably trying to settle her again after the unavoidably upsetting experience of having to relive for the psionic scan an event she'd rather wipe from her memory. But he was glad they'd managed to persuade her to try, particularly as it seemed to have produced results.
They'd managed to get her to open up a little over breakfast, and with the benefit of a last name – O'Dwyer – Adam had been able to track down more. What he'd found confirmed his earlier impression about her. Her devoutly Catholic family would not have acknowledged the possibility of her mutancy to themselves, let alone anyone else. But, as she told them, she'd known there was something different about her, something that made her contact with others a risky business for them. And it was fear of what her tendency to give off unexpected static charges might mean, combined with her family's stifling refusal to admit to it, that had driven her to run away.
Drying tears notwithstanding, the girl looked better for a good night's sleep, he thought, wishing the rest of his team had taken similar advantage of the opportunity. It had been a long and emotional day for all of them, but their seeming need to find some tangible focus for their anger at recent events had kept them up way too late, talking the thing round in circles and making fruitless checks of the barely tenable leads their tired minds produced.
This had been especially true of Shalimar who, unable to do anything directly to help Jesse now, was looking for alternative directions to vent her protective urges – preferably against those who were the cause of what had happened to him. Even when fatigue had finally forced her to stop, she'd been unable to give in completely. He'd found her curled up, cat-napping, in a chair in the corner of med-bay when he'd gone to look in on the still comatose molecular before going to bed himself, and he knew that Emma had replaced her there at some point in the night as they ensured that their friend wasn't left alone – despite his assurances to them that Jesse was well monitored and that he himself was planning regular checks.
Emma looked up as they entered, leaving Connie with a quiet word and resting a reassuring hand momentarily on her shoulder as she came to join them. The girl's eyes followed her anxiously, though, with no sign of the bravado she'd been so full of the previous evening, and, dressed in what appeared to be Shalimar's teenage cast-offs and without the outlandish make-up, he realised how very young she really was.
"What have you got?" Adam asked quietly, sending a smile Connie's way that he was pleased to see her respond to tentatively.
"A name!" Shalimar couldn't contain herself any longer, but Emma qualified that to, "Well, half a name," with a small grin before continuing. "She didn't see anything – the place she was hiding in was dark, no way she could get a look at what was happening outside, so there was nothing for the rig to read and convert to images. But the boost I gave her helped her remember some more of what she heard – and it seems they might have gotten a little careless."
"And?" Adam prompted, looking from one to the other expectantly.
The blonde got in first, though. "DeSalles. One of them mentioned a Mr. DeSalles."
"DeSalles?"
"Ring any bells?" Emma asked.
"No, not particularly. Although..." He frowned, trying to pin down the elusive flash of familiarity that had stolen through his mind at the mention of the name. "No, it's gone. But that certainly gives us somewhere to start. Good work." He paused, seeing from their expressions that there was something more, something he perhaps wasn't going to be so pleased about. "So... what else did you find?"
Expression sober, Emma sighed, lowering her voice with a sideways glance towards the girl as she responded. "What this guy actually said was something like, 'You know Mr. DeSalles wants his freaks delivered alive, even if it is a temporary condition once he has them'."
And though he'd known that the odds had been stacking up heavily on the side of this thing being mutant-related and terminal for those taken, the confirmation left him momentarily speechless.
"You don't have to whisper," Connie said into the silence. "It was me who heard them, remember? I already know what they said, what it means." They all turned to see her glaring at them with a rekindling of her former self-assurance.
"What who said? What did I miss?" Brennan chose that moment to walk into the lab, and immediately regretted it as everyone seemed to answer him at once.
"They think I'm stupid – and they think Gayle's dead!" overlaid by "You're supposed to be sitting with Jess!" mingled with "We have a name, probably who those goons were working for..." and augmented by "Ah, Brennan, good. I have a job for you."
"Whoa!" He took a step back again and raised his hands in self-defence. "One at a time, eh? We got a name?"
He looked towards Emma, but Connie seemed not to hear him, appealing to the room at large for some hope she could cling to. "Temporary could mean days, though, couldn't it?"
She wasn't the only one not listening to him. "I can't believe you left him alone," Shalimar almost growled as she pushed past him to get to the door. "What if he wakes up and there's no-one there?!"
"Yes, DeSalles," Emma supplied distractedly, trying to block out the rising emotions now filling the room.
"I bet you aren't going to try and help her now, are you?" Connie persisted. "This really stinks! I knew I should have done something more - tried harder to persuade her to leave after the dreams."
"Dreams?" The girl suddenly found herself the centre of attention of everyone in the room. "What dreams?"
She blinked nervously under their scrutiny, shifting awkwardly in the chair as they all moved closer to stare down at her. "She'd been having dreams – nightmares, really. She knew it was going to happen, she'd seen it. That's why she made the hiding place. I wanted her to move out, to come with me somewhere they'd never find her, but she wouldn't. She said she was tired of running, and what would be would be." She paused, seeing the looks being exchanged around her. "What?" she asked. "Does that help?"
"I don't know," answered Adam honestly, rubbing pensively at his chin. "Jesse had been having nightmares, too. It could just be a coincidence – but it's a coincidence we should maybe be investigating. Along with the mysterious Mr. DeSalles, of course."
He turned back to the others. "OK, let's get to work. DeSalles isn't a common name – let's do some surfing, see what we can come up with on the net. We can move on to less obvious sources if we need to narrow the field, or just to find out more once we have a suspect."
Shalimar started to speak, but he silenced her with a knowing smile. "I'll keep an eye on Jesse – I can work from there, think about this nightmare thing. But without his expertise to call on, you're our next best shot at getting into some of the more secure databases, so I need you concentrating on that." He saw her hesitation and went on, "Well, you did say you taught him everything he knows, didn't you?"
She gazed up at him for a few seconds, not attempting to disguise the indecision she was feeling, but she acknowledged that he was probably right with a nod and turned towards the door again with Emma behind her.
"Hey, what about me?" piped up Connie, obviously piqued at being left out of the conversation after her revelation.
"Ah, yes." Adam turned to her with a grin and a sparkle in his eyes as he called out. "Brennan? I have a job for you."
The elemental stopped and came back into the room, forehead creased in confusion. "But... I thought we were going to go dig up this DeSalles guy."
"The girls can handle that. I need you to spend some time with Connie here."
Brennan's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock and consternation as he swung them from Adam to the girl and back again. "Excuse me?" he said faintly, but he could tell from the way the older man was looking at him that he was hearing right. "You *have* to be kidding! Why... what...?"
Adam didn't seem in the least bit bothered by his discomfiture – in fact, he seemed to be almost enjoying it. "Connie's an electrical elemental, though it seems she's a late developer. I can't really tell how her powers are going to manifest themselves, but who better to help her get started, understand what she's probably going to go through than someone who's been through it all already."
"No... oh no, no, you can't be serious!" Brennan lowered his voice just a little, out of deference to the kid's feelings. "Me? Babysitting? No way! Get one of the others..."
But Adam just patted him on the shoulder as he moved past him. "They aren't elementals, now are they? No, this one is yours. Enjoy!"
And he was left with the girl. The girl who was now standing smiling at him, a look in her eyes as they swept over him from toes to head that unaccountably sent a shiver of apprehension through him.
He was horrified to feel the colour rise into his cheeks in a way it hadn't done since he was... well, probably since he was her age, and that just made it all worse. But he hadn't survived all that he had without being able to rise above such setbacks, so he conjured up a smile of his own and turned it on her, strangely gratified to see her smirk fade just a little.
"So, where do you wanna start?" he asked, blocking out the giggles echoing back down the corridor.
**
"What are you drawing?"
"Nothing, really – just doodling."
"Oh, go on, Joshua, let me look. You know how much I love seeing your work."
"No! I said it was nothing. Give it back!"
"Now, don't get so worked up – you know it's not good for you."
"Give it back, then!"
A sigh. "I do wish you weren't so secretive all the time. It would be nice to be able to talk to you more about what you're doing. What you're interested in..."
A moment's silence then, "I'm sorry... I don't mean to shut you out."
"I really have no idea what goes on in your head most of the time. I mean, what's this? A campfire? Would you like us to take you camping?"
A different sigh. "No. Really, no. And it's not a campfire. It's a... a..."
"A crown, then? Or a cake? With candles?"
Softly. "Yes... yes, it's a cake..."
"Oh! You fancy some cake? That's a wonderful idea! How about Lemon Drizzle? Or Chocolate Fudge? Let me go and see what we have in the larder..."
****
"Adam, we've got something!" Shalimar's excitement seemed to precede her into Adam's office, sweeping him up in its fervour and carrying him back to the lab with her almost without the need for conscious thought on his part.
Emma was talking quietly to Connie when they got there, probably trying to settle her again after the unavoidably upsetting experience of having to relive for the psionic scan an event she'd rather wipe from her memory. But he was glad they'd managed to persuade her to try, particularly as it seemed to have produced results.
They'd managed to get her to open up a little over breakfast, and with the benefit of a last name – O'Dwyer – Adam had been able to track down more. What he'd found confirmed his earlier impression about her. Her devoutly Catholic family would not have acknowledged the possibility of her mutancy to themselves, let alone anyone else. But, as she told them, she'd known there was something different about her, something that made her contact with others a risky business for them. And it was fear of what her tendency to give off unexpected static charges might mean, combined with her family's stifling refusal to admit to it, that had driven her to run away.
Drying tears notwithstanding, the girl looked better for a good night's sleep, he thought, wishing the rest of his team had taken similar advantage of the opportunity. It had been a long and emotional day for all of them, but their seeming need to find some tangible focus for their anger at recent events had kept them up way too late, talking the thing round in circles and making fruitless checks of the barely tenable leads their tired minds produced.
This had been especially true of Shalimar who, unable to do anything directly to help Jesse now, was looking for alternative directions to vent her protective urges – preferably against those who were the cause of what had happened to him. Even when fatigue had finally forced her to stop, she'd been unable to give in completely. He'd found her curled up, cat-napping, in a chair in the corner of med-bay when he'd gone to look in on the still comatose molecular before going to bed himself, and he knew that Emma had replaced her there at some point in the night as they ensured that their friend wasn't left alone – despite his assurances to them that Jesse was well monitored and that he himself was planning regular checks.
Emma looked up as they entered, leaving Connie with a quiet word and resting a reassuring hand momentarily on her shoulder as she came to join them. The girl's eyes followed her anxiously, though, with no sign of the bravado she'd been so full of the previous evening, and, dressed in what appeared to be Shalimar's teenage cast-offs and without the outlandish make-up, he realised how very young she really was.
"What have you got?" Adam asked quietly, sending a smile Connie's way that he was pleased to see her respond to tentatively.
"A name!" Shalimar couldn't contain herself any longer, but Emma qualified that to, "Well, half a name," with a small grin before continuing. "She didn't see anything – the place she was hiding in was dark, no way she could get a look at what was happening outside, so there was nothing for the rig to read and convert to images. But the boost I gave her helped her remember some more of what she heard – and it seems they might have gotten a little careless."
"And?" Adam prompted, looking from one to the other expectantly.
The blonde got in first, though. "DeSalles. One of them mentioned a Mr. DeSalles."
"DeSalles?"
"Ring any bells?" Emma asked.
"No, not particularly. Although..." He frowned, trying to pin down the elusive flash of familiarity that had stolen through his mind at the mention of the name. "No, it's gone. But that certainly gives us somewhere to start. Good work." He paused, seeing from their expressions that there was something more, something he perhaps wasn't going to be so pleased about. "So... what else did you find?"
Expression sober, Emma sighed, lowering her voice with a sideways glance towards the girl as she responded. "What this guy actually said was something like, 'You know Mr. DeSalles wants his freaks delivered alive, even if it is a temporary condition once he has them'."
And though he'd known that the odds had been stacking up heavily on the side of this thing being mutant-related and terminal for those taken, the confirmation left him momentarily speechless.
"You don't have to whisper," Connie said into the silence. "It was me who heard them, remember? I already know what they said, what it means." They all turned to see her glaring at them with a rekindling of her former self-assurance.
"What who said? What did I miss?" Brennan chose that moment to walk into the lab, and immediately regretted it as everyone seemed to answer him at once.
"They think I'm stupid – and they think Gayle's dead!" overlaid by "You're supposed to be sitting with Jess!" mingled with "We have a name, probably who those goons were working for..." and augmented by "Ah, Brennan, good. I have a job for you."
"Whoa!" He took a step back again and raised his hands in self-defence. "One at a time, eh? We got a name?"
He looked towards Emma, but Connie seemed not to hear him, appealing to the room at large for some hope she could cling to. "Temporary could mean days, though, couldn't it?"
She wasn't the only one not listening to him. "I can't believe you left him alone," Shalimar almost growled as she pushed past him to get to the door. "What if he wakes up and there's no-one there?!"
"Yes, DeSalles," Emma supplied distractedly, trying to block out the rising emotions now filling the room.
"I bet you aren't going to try and help her now, are you?" Connie persisted. "This really stinks! I knew I should have done something more - tried harder to persuade her to leave after the dreams."
"Dreams?" The girl suddenly found herself the centre of attention of everyone in the room. "What dreams?"
She blinked nervously under their scrutiny, shifting awkwardly in the chair as they all moved closer to stare down at her. "She'd been having dreams – nightmares, really. She knew it was going to happen, she'd seen it. That's why she made the hiding place. I wanted her to move out, to come with me somewhere they'd never find her, but she wouldn't. She said she was tired of running, and what would be would be." She paused, seeing the looks being exchanged around her. "What?" she asked. "Does that help?"
"I don't know," answered Adam honestly, rubbing pensively at his chin. "Jesse had been having nightmares, too. It could just be a coincidence – but it's a coincidence we should maybe be investigating. Along with the mysterious Mr. DeSalles, of course."
He turned back to the others. "OK, let's get to work. DeSalles isn't a common name – let's do some surfing, see what we can come up with on the net. We can move on to less obvious sources if we need to narrow the field, or just to find out more once we have a suspect."
Shalimar started to speak, but he silenced her with a knowing smile. "I'll keep an eye on Jesse – I can work from there, think about this nightmare thing. But without his expertise to call on, you're our next best shot at getting into some of the more secure databases, so I need you concentrating on that." He saw her hesitation and went on, "Well, you did say you taught him everything he knows, didn't you?"
She gazed up at him for a few seconds, not attempting to disguise the indecision she was feeling, but she acknowledged that he was probably right with a nod and turned towards the door again with Emma behind her.
"Hey, what about me?" piped up Connie, obviously piqued at being left out of the conversation after her revelation.
"Ah, yes." Adam turned to her with a grin and a sparkle in his eyes as he called out. "Brennan? I have a job for you."
The elemental stopped and came back into the room, forehead creased in confusion. "But... I thought we were going to go dig up this DeSalles guy."
"The girls can handle that. I need you to spend some time with Connie here."
Brennan's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock and consternation as he swung them from Adam to the girl and back again. "Excuse me?" he said faintly, but he could tell from the way the older man was looking at him that he was hearing right. "You *have* to be kidding! Why... what...?"
Adam didn't seem in the least bit bothered by his discomfiture – in fact, he seemed to be almost enjoying it. "Connie's an electrical elemental, though it seems she's a late developer. I can't really tell how her powers are going to manifest themselves, but who better to help her get started, understand what she's probably going to go through than someone who's been through it all already."
"No... oh no, no, you can't be serious!" Brennan lowered his voice just a little, out of deference to the kid's feelings. "Me? Babysitting? No way! Get one of the others..."
But Adam just patted him on the shoulder as he moved past him. "They aren't elementals, now are they? No, this one is yours. Enjoy!"
And he was left with the girl. The girl who was now standing smiling at him, a look in her eyes as they swept over him from toes to head that unaccountably sent a shiver of apprehension through him.
He was horrified to feel the colour rise into his cheeks in a way it hadn't done since he was... well, probably since he was her age, and that just made it all worse. But he hadn't survived all that he had without being able to rise above such setbacks, so he conjured up a smile of his own and turned it on her, strangely gratified to see her smirk fade just a little.
"So, where do you wanna start?" he asked, blocking out the giggles echoing back down the corridor.
**
"What are you drawing?"
"Nothing, really – just doodling."
"Oh, go on, Joshua, let me look. You know how much I love seeing your work."
"No! I said it was nothing. Give it back!"
"Now, don't get so worked up – you know it's not good for you."
"Give it back, then!"
A sigh. "I do wish you weren't so secretive all the time. It would be nice to be able to talk to you more about what you're doing. What you're interested in..."
A moment's silence then, "I'm sorry... I don't mean to shut you out."
"I really have no idea what goes on in your head most of the time. I mean, what's this? A campfire? Would you like us to take you camping?"
A different sigh. "No. Really, no. And it's not a campfire. It's a... a..."
"A crown, then? Or a cake? With candles?"
Softly. "Yes... yes, it's a cake..."
"Oh! You fancy some cake? That's a wonderful idea! How about Lemon Drizzle? Or Chocolate Fudge? Let me go and see what we have in the larder..."
****