--------------- Chapter 7 ---------------------

Adam looked up from his console as Emma dashed into his lab, breathless. Assuming the worst he was on his feet, ready to go.

"Emma, what's wrong?"

"I feel asleep and now Shalimar's disappeared." He relaxed a little.

"Do you know where she would have gone?"

"I don't know, but she's not in the medilab."

"Adam." Jesse's voice came over the comm. "I've found something in the system that I think you should see."

"Jesse, can you track Shalimar from the console?" Not questioning his order, Jesse set up the search immediately.

"The tracking is up, but the communications to her comm. link are still down and I can't access it at the moment. I can find her, but not talk to her. Wasn't Emma with her?"

"I fell asleep, Jesse. I lost the link." Emma couldn't help but feel guilty. She had relaxed while trying to help and now Shalimar might be in worse trouble than before.

"Emma, can you find her?" Adam asked.

"I'll try." Nodding and pulling her emotions back under control, Emma took a seat by the meditation pool. It took her longer than usual to relax into the state she needed to reach out to Shalimar, but when she found her she opened her eyes, started.

"Shalimar's outside." She spoke into her comm. ring, jumping as Jesse's voice echoed her words.

"We had no idea that the feral would be so strong sir. We didn't even have time to aim the tranquillisers. It was suggested in the intel we received that she would be unwilling to hurt anyone."

"What's the damage?" Rogers growled at the panicked Major.

"We have four men down and the feral escaped into the forest. So far we've been unable to track her."

"Bring your men out of that forest, Major, if she's violent then they're at more risk than is necessary. Send Red Team over and leave me with four of your men and the tranq. guns. The rest of you need to be ready to trap the others as planned. I'll deal with the feral."

Shalimar sat up with a start. She was in the forest again, but this time there was no sign of Emma. She took a deep breath of the woodland air, this was no dream or illusion. This was real. She whooped with joy and jumped from the high branch she had awoken in to the leaf-littered floor.

"Adam, Emma!" She spoke into her comm. ring. "I'm outside." There was no reply. "Brennan, Jesse. You there?" Still no reply. Shalimar struggled to remember how she had escaped, looking for an explanation but finding none. She remembered nothing since Emma had fallen asleep in her illusion of this woodland. Making her way to the edge of the woodland to try and get back to Sanctuary, her delicate hearing picked up sounds of movement.

Leaping into the branches of one of the trees on the boundary of the forest, Shalimar looked out curiously.

"The feral is somewhere in these forests." One man, dressed in a military uniform was addressing several others, pacing up and down their ranks. "She will not escape. The others are being captured as we speak. I want the guns on the periphery and I want Red Team in a straight-line formation between here and the base-camp." Looking carefully at the line of men Shalimar could see four carrying large weapons and four without. She wondered what the four without were going to do. "The elementals need space if they're going to use their powers. I don't want the guns getting in the way, understood?"

"Yes sir." All eight men yelled in unison. Absently, Shalimar wondered what type of elementals the 'Red Team' might be.

"Then MOVE OUT!" The commander ordered, the eight men turning and jogging to their positions between her and Sanctuary. The commander followed Red Team out to their positions, calling them all back into him for a moment. Shalimar strained her ears to hear what he was saying, needing to know what he was planning.

"She has to come past here if she wants to save her friends. Do what you think necessary. If the guns get in the way, flame them. They deserve..." Anything more that he might have said was lost to Shalimar in the hissing rush that filled her ears as she fought to remain conscious. Fire elementals. There were fire elementals keeping her from Sanctuary, from Emma.

All energy seemed to drain from her, the raw flood of adrenaline to take the already too high levels in her body that little bit higher, drive her heart that little bit faster, to as that little bit more from her already tired body. Her heat beat so strong that every beat shook her body and she was sure that her panting breaths could be heard by the four figures stood so close by, and the other four, even more threatening to her, that little bit further away. Her vision tunnelled and then faded out completely.

The leader walked away, leaving the eight men behind him and Shalimar, still unseen and unnoticed, unconscious high in the branches of a tree.

Adam sighed. "We'll worry about how Shalimar got outside later, for now..."

"Adam, I think I've found something that might explain that. There's a less than random pattern to the shutdown."

"A fingerprint?"

"Looks like it. It might be a telecyber, or maybe just a very good hacker, either way..."

"Do they have control over our systems? Could they have changed something without it alerting us?"

"It's possible. I'm working on it now."

"OK, Jesse you keep going. Emma I want you and Brennan to go round for me and check all the doors. If any of the system doors are open stay away from them but keep an eye on them. It looks like we might be set for an invasion. Let's just hope Shalimar is okay out there."

"Adam, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get in contact with the safe houses and start shutting down the network. Everything's backed up and we can take it all with us if we have to evacuate Sanctuary, but if whoever's out there manipulating our system gets in here, we need to know everyone's safe."

"Do you think we'll have to leave Sanctuary?" Emma asked quietly.

"I really don't want to contemplate it, but if Sanctuary has been exposed then it's no longer a safe place."