--------------- Chapter 4 ---------------------

(Spoiler for Future revealed. Nothing big, if you haven't seen the episode you might not get the reference.)

Emma's hand was still tightly intertwined with Shalimar's as she was laid on the medical chair. Adam had grilled her for information as they made their way up to the lab and now he was busy over the scanner's controls. The first reading he took confirmed what he had already guessed. He administering several medications to suppress the symptoms and force the feral into sleep, waiting until she was sleeping soundly before he leading the rest of the team outside.

Glancing at each of his surrogate children his eyes settled on Emma.

"How could you think hiding this from me was a good idea!"

"She asked me to. She seemed to be able to handle it, it didn't seem too bad."

"She's DIEING Emma!" Adam shouted, his face reddening. Emma looked close to tears, glancing past him to where she could still see Shalimar, laid out on the medical bed.

"HEY!" Brennan pulled Adam back, out of Emma's face. "Cool down. We need to know what's going on. Shal's way too capable for her own good, she'd never admit she was hurting." Adam forced himself to calm down; regretting his outburst, realising his anger was with himself for not noticing the symptoms in his feral.

"We're all worried about Shal," Jesse took over. "But we need to know what's happening so we can help her." Adam sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to reorganise his thoughts.

"Do you remember the feral virus?"

"God, how could we forget? So many of them died, and we thought we'd lost Shal" Brennan trailed off.

"All of those who died had a specific faulty gene." Adam explained. "The same gene was present in Shalimar's DNA and we were sure she'd died with the others, but somehow she survived."

"I remember." Emma responded weakly.

"Well, after we'd recovered Shalimar I did some research into the condition that caused the death of the other ferals. It was something that I was never told about while we were at Genomex. I'm amazed and annoyed I never found it in my own work I spent so much time working with the feral's genes" Adam cleared his throat, abandoning that line of explanation as Emma flinched at the casual talk of his job at Genomex. "Anyway, the gene couldn't be altered without risking the individual's physical strength, so someone made the decision that it was to be left. It only appeared in half of the individuals and it was manageable."

"What was manageable? What does the gene do?" Emma pursued as Adam paused again.

"Some animals, the squirrel for example, when trapped or kept in captivity will display characteristics that can be seen as suicide. In the same way this gene can trigger some kind of suicide in the feral body. It's normal for adrenaline to be produced when you're trapped. All that's different in this situation is that the feral can't stop producing it until they're effectively freed or they die. High levels of adrenaline allow us to get out of tough situations by increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar levels; simply put they increase the amount of energy we have immediately available to us. This might help us run faster from danger or be able to fight our way out of situations in which we're trapped. Over a long period of time high levels of adrenaline can cause all sorts of damage in the body. While the virus was around all of the ferals were a lot closer to their feral side so it started to affect them while they were trapped."

"We killed them by trying to keep them safe." Emma whispered, realising what Adam was saying.

"Unfortunately, Yes."

"And because Shal escaped, she wasn't caught or held captive and she was safe."

"Exactly."

"But she's been cured of the virus, how can this affect her now?" Jesse asked.

"Shalimar works with her feral powers all the time. She's always been close to her feral side. The virus wasn't the reason for the activation of the gene, it just brought it to my attention."

"She's genetically cleithrophobic." Emma put in.

"Exactly." Adam agreed.

"In English?" Adam smiled at Brennan's question.

"She will react adversely to any environment where she's trapped or locked in. It's not like claustrophobia, the space can be any size or any shape, it's the inability to leave at will that will trigger it."

"But we've been locked in more than once in the missions we've been on."

"Has she seemed more nervous, angry, violent than normal? Stronger? More aggressive?"

"Yeah, but"

"It's all caused by the increased adrenaline in her system. You've never been in these situations for long enough for it to advance this far. This about it, we've been trapped in here for over a week. I'm surprised she didn't try to break a door down or attack one of us or collapse completely."

"But Adam, all the others died. What if we can't get out of here?"

"Then she'll join them." The spoke quietly. There was a moment's shocked silence, everyone trying to process the information they'd been given.

"How long." Emma whispered at last.

"Too soon, I can't tell for sure. She's fit so she's stronger than a lot of the others, but I don't want to risk anything. I want her outside ASAP, or we're going to loose her."

"Wait a minute, your saying that just getting Shal out of Sanctuary will 'cure' whatever this is, that's killing her."

"Yes, but all of the door systems are locked down at the moment and I can't open them. All the electrical systems are down, even the emergency exits won't open."

"There's a side wall into the cave system that I can phase through," Jesse suggested. "It's the way we got in when Ashlock was holding you here. Can we get Shal out that way? It won't sort out the problem with the system, but it will let Shal out."

"Great. Jesse, Brennan, go and get Shalimar. If you can do it without waking her, all the better. If you can get her outside, just leave her there, she'll be fine when she wakes up. I'm going to work on the computer system."

"What about me?" Emma asked. "What can I do to help?"

"Get some sleep, Emma. If this doesn't work we're going to need your skills."