Part 14
"Adam, he's waking up!"
Emma's call brought Adam hurrying through from the lab where he'd been channelling his irritation at having Jesse 'hang up' on him into more productive areas of endeavour, though she knew that he'd also been trying to raise their errant teammate at increasingly regular intervals. But she was pleased to see a smile of relief replacing the frown that had been in almost permanent residence since they'd last heard from the Double Helix.
Since they'd got back to Sanctuary the time had flown by in a haze of conflicting emotions as she'd leapt from crisis to crisis – first the need to get Joshua into a stable environment, followed by the discovery of the missing plane and the conversation with its occupant. And she'd just realised that Connie had been keeping a low profile – though that could just have been her way of avoiding a bawling out for not telling them what Jesse was doing. But at least there was something positive to boost her spirits with now.
"Excellent! Looks like we got his brain chemistry balanced again." Adam came to a halt beside her, watching as Joshua's eyes blinked open. "I thought he'd come out of it pretty quick once I'd worked out where the problem was."
He adjusted the bio bed to a raised position, letting Emma settle the boy more comfortably as he checked over the monitors. He was pleased to see his treatment had been as effective as he'd hoped, addressing not just the seizure but also a number of other side-effects of the mutating genes that were relatively easy to correct, and he was hopeful that this would make Joshua more comfortable with his developing powers.
The DNA screen Adam had done showed all the signs of powerful telepathic potential, although there were some unusual anomalies as well that he hadn't seen before and which he'd occupied himself trying to unravel. But there was also Emma's description of the 'all or nothing' contact she'd sensed, and he'd had already begun to map out a plan of action which he was sure would help the boy learn to control his mental interactions with others in a less drastic fashion.
"Is this Sanctuary?" Joshua's soft query brought his attention back to his patient, and with an encouraging smile he confirmed it was before asking how he was feeling. "Better," came the response after a moment's consideration, with underlying tones of surprise that were reflected in the dark eyes gazing up at him.
"Pleased to hear it." Adam hesitated, wondering how much Joshua really understood about what was happening to him and a little unsure of the best way to explain what he'd done without alarming him too much. "I've managed to pinpoint and remedy what caused you to have that black-out, and made a few small adjustments to your genetic configuration that should stop it happening again. There'll probably be other things I can do to help once I've had the chance to run a few more tests, talk things through with you. But that can wait until you feel a bit stronger."
"My... genetic configuration?"
"Yes." He considered elaborating further, even though Joshua was clearly still suffering from the after-effects of his seizure. But he didn't get the chance.
"Jesse's gone, hasn't he? To find her?" The non sequitur had Adam and Emma blinking at him in surprise.
"How did you know that?" the psionic asked, checking and finding his shields as impenetrable as ever which ruled out his reading it from them.
"I – I saw him again." The pale face showed more real expression than they'd ever seen, but the sadness and foreboding it conveyed didn't serve to reassure any. "It felt... soon."
Flashing a look at Emma, Adam asked for them both, "What did you see?"
The whispered answer was typically oblique, though. "What still might be."
Adam tried to clamp down on a revival of the frustration his earlier conversation with Jesse had created, knowing that haranguing him wouldn't help now. Instead, he said carefully, "I know I asked you this before, Joshua, but what made you feel you could share these visions you've been having with Jesse and the others?"
The boy looked up at him with those huge unreadable eyes, but when he spoke it was with thoughtful simplicity "It's... complicated. Right at the beginning, when I woke up, things were very confused for a while. I didn't really remember what had happened, but I did remember people – Gayle, Peter, Martha... some others... and Jesse. But no one around me knew who or what I was talking about. In fact, no one seemed to know anything about me, apart from the fact I was somehow unusual, although they couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me how."
He frowned to himself at that, but went on. "Thinking about what seemed familiar to me made me feel less alone, so I focused on those people. And the more I thought about them, the closer they seemed to be. But then I started to remember more about what happened, and that seemed to open something in my mind, something that would have been better kept locked away. I thought I was going mad. There was so much going on in my head – images, sounds, thoughts, voices... And the dreams..." He broke off, eyes clouding.
"Sounds like your 'unusualness' decided to kick in hard," Adam said, gently. "But it seems like you found a way to deal with it – do you hear people's thoughts now?"
Joshua took a deep breath. "No. Not... not really. One day - I don't know how - I just turned it off, stopped it. Stopped the noise, the flashes. But not the dreams. They kept coming - and they felt so real. I couldn't just ignore them, not if there was a chance they might come true. Not when the people in them were suffering so much. Like Jesse has been. So I found a quiet place where I could think about whoever it was, try and connect with them, show them what I'd seen. Just in case it *was* real. But I didn't know until you came whether it had worked."
"Oh, it worked," Adam assured him, remembering again how badly Jesse had been affected by the most recent encounter, and feeling his apprehension for his absent team members cranking up a couple of notches. "It worked very well."
In parallel, Emma's own level of concern rose past the point where she could sit back and listen, forcing her to ask, "So, you know what Jesse's last dream was about? What he thinks is going to happen?"
There was no verbal answer, nothing but a slight nod.
"So... what is it?" she asked, but this time he shook his head.
"If he hasn't told you, I'm not sure I can – or should. It's his to tell, not mine."
"But we know it has to do with Shalimar. If she's going to be in danger, we need to know."
"Things aren't always as they appear. By telling you what isn't meant for you to see, it could affect what's meant to be."
"I don't think we have time for the luxury of philosophical debates into temporal manipulation and multiple universes," Adam said, firmly. "And as Jesse isn't here, we're not going to hear it from him. So..." He waved a hand in a gesture of invitation and, after a few very long moments during which Joshua was clearly weighing up the consequences of what he was about to say, he got his answer.
"She dies. Badly. In a fire. And he can't do anything to save her."
The shocked silence that followed these bald statements, as Emma and Adam tried to get to grips with the implications of what they'd heard, was shattered by a hiss of static from the comms system, followed by, "Is anyone there? Adam? Damn... which button is it..."
Startled, Adam leapt to answer the tentative voice. "Connie? Connie, where are you? We could have used your help."
"Er, I'm, er... in your plane. Down here – wherever here is."
Adam exchanged a worried glance with Emma, but he decided there were more pressing matters than ascertaining how she'd gotten there. "Connie, where's Jesse?"
"You know, you guys really need to, like, get down here quick," the girl replied rather evasively, adding when pushed, "He kind of got himself caught."
Adam swore colourfully enough to impress a trooper, evoking an immediate defensive response from the other end.
"Listen, it wasn't my fault – I told him not to go. But it was like he was on automatic pilot or something. Told me to stay here and hide, but I thought I'd better keep an eye on him – from way back, though, which turned out to be a really good idea 'cuz those guys didn't look like they were real happy about finding him there." She paused briefly, as if considering something, then went on. "What I don't understand, though, is why he didn't fight back more instead of just letting them whup him like that..."
"The dream," murmured Joshua behind them. "He was held captive when it happened..."
But Adam was already moving towards the central workstation, talking as he punched up the Helix's main command programme. "Connie, I need you to do something for me..."
****
'That'll teach you to try and go it alone. You should have known you'd screw it up.' The little voice echoed jeeringly through the foggy recesses of Jesse's aching mind and, though his pride screamed out for him to deny it, he had to acknowledge it was right, no matter that it stripped his soul bare and left him prey to his demons.
He'd made it far enough to know he was in the right place, far enough to witness the ultimate purpose of the nameless faceless apparitions of his dreams. But he'd allowed what he'd seen, and the total certainty that the same or worse was going to befall his friends, to hold him in thrall far too long. Long enough, at least, for the faceless ones to find him.
He'd tried to fight them. Really. Tried to use his powers to attack, defend, evade, so he could find her, free her before it was too late. But, after the effort he'd expended getting there, his lungs had been unwilling or unable to hold air long enough to mass, and exhaling just brought on uncontrollable coughing fits that precluded the control he needed to phase. And underneath it all, hampering his every move, was the truth of the future his nightmare had shown him, a future he was finding it harder and harder to disavow. So, far sooner than his self-esteem should have permitted, he'd just let them take him.
Chained up in this box, 'yoked' to normality by the band round his throat, he'd accepted the punishment they'd meted out to him under the guise of encouraging his response to their questions in silence, knowing it was no more than he'd deserved for his deficiencies, his inability to do what was needed. He'd even craved the physical pain of fists meeting flesh and the bright flashes of electrically generated agony, in the vain hope it would drown out the increasingly unbearable ache of a heart burdened down by regret and remorse.
But nothing could. Ever.
What would be would now unavoidably be. And it would be his fault, his failure to live and die with. He didn't even have the hope of future absolution somewhere in whatever afterlife might await them all to cling to. Because there could be no forgiveness as long as he was unable to forgive himself. And that day could never come.
****
"Adam, he's waking up!"
Emma's call brought Adam hurrying through from the lab where he'd been channelling his irritation at having Jesse 'hang up' on him into more productive areas of endeavour, though she knew that he'd also been trying to raise their errant teammate at increasingly regular intervals. But she was pleased to see a smile of relief replacing the frown that had been in almost permanent residence since they'd last heard from the Double Helix.
Since they'd got back to Sanctuary the time had flown by in a haze of conflicting emotions as she'd leapt from crisis to crisis – first the need to get Joshua into a stable environment, followed by the discovery of the missing plane and the conversation with its occupant. And she'd just realised that Connie had been keeping a low profile – though that could just have been her way of avoiding a bawling out for not telling them what Jesse was doing. But at least there was something positive to boost her spirits with now.
"Excellent! Looks like we got his brain chemistry balanced again." Adam came to a halt beside her, watching as Joshua's eyes blinked open. "I thought he'd come out of it pretty quick once I'd worked out where the problem was."
He adjusted the bio bed to a raised position, letting Emma settle the boy more comfortably as he checked over the monitors. He was pleased to see his treatment had been as effective as he'd hoped, addressing not just the seizure but also a number of other side-effects of the mutating genes that were relatively easy to correct, and he was hopeful that this would make Joshua more comfortable with his developing powers.
The DNA screen Adam had done showed all the signs of powerful telepathic potential, although there were some unusual anomalies as well that he hadn't seen before and which he'd occupied himself trying to unravel. But there was also Emma's description of the 'all or nothing' contact she'd sensed, and he'd had already begun to map out a plan of action which he was sure would help the boy learn to control his mental interactions with others in a less drastic fashion.
"Is this Sanctuary?" Joshua's soft query brought his attention back to his patient, and with an encouraging smile he confirmed it was before asking how he was feeling. "Better," came the response after a moment's consideration, with underlying tones of surprise that were reflected in the dark eyes gazing up at him.
"Pleased to hear it." Adam hesitated, wondering how much Joshua really understood about what was happening to him and a little unsure of the best way to explain what he'd done without alarming him too much. "I've managed to pinpoint and remedy what caused you to have that black-out, and made a few small adjustments to your genetic configuration that should stop it happening again. There'll probably be other things I can do to help once I've had the chance to run a few more tests, talk things through with you. But that can wait until you feel a bit stronger."
"My... genetic configuration?"
"Yes." He considered elaborating further, even though Joshua was clearly still suffering from the after-effects of his seizure. But he didn't get the chance.
"Jesse's gone, hasn't he? To find her?" The non sequitur had Adam and Emma blinking at him in surprise.
"How did you know that?" the psionic asked, checking and finding his shields as impenetrable as ever which ruled out his reading it from them.
"I – I saw him again." The pale face showed more real expression than they'd ever seen, but the sadness and foreboding it conveyed didn't serve to reassure any. "It felt... soon."
Flashing a look at Emma, Adam asked for them both, "What did you see?"
The whispered answer was typically oblique, though. "What still might be."
Adam tried to clamp down on a revival of the frustration his earlier conversation with Jesse had created, knowing that haranguing him wouldn't help now. Instead, he said carefully, "I know I asked you this before, Joshua, but what made you feel you could share these visions you've been having with Jesse and the others?"
The boy looked up at him with those huge unreadable eyes, but when he spoke it was with thoughtful simplicity "It's... complicated. Right at the beginning, when I woke up, things were very confused for a while. I didn't really remember what had happened, but I did remember people – Gayle, Peter, Martha... some others... and Jesse. But no one around me knew who or what I was talking about. In fact, no one seemed to know anything about me, apart from the fact I was somehow unusual, although they couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me how."
He frowned to himself at that, but went on. "Thinking about what seemed familiar to me made me feel less alone, so I focused on those people. And the more I thought about them, the closer they seemed to be. But then I started to remember more about what happened, and that seemed to open something in my mind, something that would have been better kept locked away. I thought I was going mad. There was so much going on in my head – images, sounds, thoughts, voices... And the dreams..." He broke off, eyes clouding.
"Sounds like your 'unusualness' decided to kick in hard," Adam said, gently. "But it seems like you found a way to deal with it – do you hear people's thoughts now?"
Joshua took a deep breath. "No. Not... not really. One day - I don't know how - I just turned it off, stopped it. Stopped the noise, the flashes. But not the dreams. They kept coming - and they felt so real. I couldn't just ignore them, not if there was a chance they might come true. Not when the people in them were suffering so much. Like Jesse has been. So I found a quiet place where I could think about whoever it was, try and connect with them, show them what I'd seen. Just in case it *was* real. But I didn't know until you came whether it had worked."
"Oh, it worked," Adam assured him, remembering again how badly Jesse had been affected by the most recent encounter, and feeling his apprehension for his absent team members cranking up a couple of notches. "It worked very well."
In parallel, Emma's own level of concern rose past the point where she could sit back and listen, forcing her to ask, "So, you know what Jesse's last dream was about? What he thinks is going to happen?"
There was no verbal answer, nothing but a slight nod.
"So... what is it?" she asked, but this time he shook his head.
"If he hasn't told you, I'm not sure I can – or should. It's his to tell, not mine."
"But we know it has to do with Shalimar. If she's going to be in danger, we need to know."
"Things aren't always as they appear. By telling you what isn't meant for you to see, it could affect what's meant to be."
"I don't think we have time for the luxury of philosophical debates into temporal manipulation and multiple universes," Adam said, firmly. "And as Jesse isn't here, we're not going to hear it from him. So..." He waved a hand in a gesture of invitation and, after a few very long moments during which Joshua was clearly weighing up the consequences of what he was about to say, he got his answer.
"She dies. Badly. In a fire. And he can't do anything to save her."
The shocked silence that followed these bald statements, as Emma and Adam tried to get to grips with the implications of what they'd heard, was shattered by a hiss of static from the comms system, followed by, "Is anyone there? Adam? Damn... which button is it..."
Startled, Adam leapt to answer the tentative voice. "Connie? Connie, where are you? We could have used your help."
"Er, I'm, er... in your plane. Down here – wherever here is."
Adam exchanged a worried glance with Emma, but he decided there were more pressing matters than ascertaining how she'd gotten there. "Connie, where's Jesse?"
"You know, you guys really need to, like, get down here quick," the girl replied rather evasively, adding when pushed, "He kind of got himself caught."
Adam swore colourfully enough to impress a trooper, evoking an immediate defensive response from the other end.
"Listen, it wasn't my fault – I told him not to go. But it was like he was on automatic pilot or something. Told me to stay here and hide, but I thought I'd better keep an eye on him – from way back, though, which turned out to be a really good idea 'cuz those guys didn't look like they were real happy about finding him there." She paused briefly, as if considering something, then went on. "What I don't understand, though, is why he didn't fight back more instead of just letting them whup him like that..."
"The dream," murmured Joshua behind them. "He was held captive when it happened..."
But Adam was already moving towards the central workstation, talking as he punched up the Helix's main command programme. "Connie, I need you to do something for me..."
****
'That'll teach you to try and go it alone. You should have known you'd screw it up.' The little voice echoed jeeringly through the foggy recesses of Jesse's aching mind and, though his pride screamed out for him to deny it, he had to acknowledge it was right, no matter that it stripped his soul bare and left him prey to his demons.
He'd made it far enough to know he was in the right place, far enough to witness the ultimate purpose of the nameless faceless apparitions of his dreams. But he'd allowed what he'd seen, and the total certainty that the same or worse was going to befall his friends, to hold him in thrall far too long. Long enough, at least, for the faceless ones to find him.
He'd tried to fight them. Really. Tried to use his powers to attack, defend, evade, so he could find her, free her before it was too late. But, after the effort he'd expended getting there, his lungs had been unwilling or unable to hold air long enough to mass, and exhaling just brought on uncontrollable coughing fits that precluded the control he needed to phase. And underneath it all, hampering his every move, was the truth of the future his nightmare had shown him, a future he was finding it harder and harder to disavow. So, far sooner than his self-esteem should have permitted, he'd just let them take him.
Chained up in this box, 'yoked' to normality by the band round his throat, he'd accepted the punishment they'd meted out to him under the guise of encouraging his response to their questions in silence, knowing it was no more than he'd deserved for his deficiencies, his inability to do what was needed. He'd even craved the physical pain of fists meeting flesh and the bright flashes of electrically generated agony, in the vain hope it would drown out the increasingly unbearable ache of a heart burdened down by regret and remorse.
But nothing could. Ever.
What would be would now unavoidably be. And it would be his fault, his failure to live and die with. He didn't even have the hope of future absolution somewhere in whatever afterlife might await them all to cling to. Because there could be no forgiveness as long as he was unable to forgive himself. And that day could never come.
****