Chapter 16

The Rangers were all sitting together in Alex's office. Jen was sitting next to him, holding his hand, and the others were sitting there silently; staring at the floor or the ceiling, but not at Alex.

"We lost another three children," he announced. Jen put her hand on his shoulder; he seemed ready to give up. "One of the mothers told me, to my face, that I was completely useless and that there was nothing we could do about The Mistress. She seemed ready to shot me," he commented.

"Alex, we are doing as much as we can, but she's fast, and she's very good at what she's doing," Katie said.

"Let's try to get organized," Jen suggested. Alex looked at her, his eyes were dark. "Let's go back to the beginning, let's try to see what we didn't see before," she said brightly.

"All right," Lucas agreed. "Here," he started, turning on the screen on the middle of the table, "are the pictures of the posed skeletons, we have taken the positional vectors from these pictures, we are trying to match them to any image that can help us. Right now, we are trying against art pieces."

"No," Jen said. "Art has got nothing to do with this; it has to be a scene the people who were going to see this felt familiar with."

"Family pictures," Lucas said.

"Not just family, all pictures in that house, try to match them," she suggested, looking at Alex again, worried. He looked up at her and gave her a sad smile. She kissed his cheek. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"No," he said. "You take care of your unit for now, I'll go and get some fresh air." He stood up and walked towards the balcony.

Jen turned back to her friends and said, "Anything else?"

"No," Trip said softly, but he seemed hesitant.

"What is it?"

"The names of the mutants," he said softly.

"You think we can get anything from them?" He shrugged.

Jen cleared the screen and typed the names: C A T G A T & T A T A G

"All right?" she said. "Ideas?"

"Well," Trip started. "I've been thinking about it..."

*********

Alex walked out to the balcony and took a deep breath. He didn't want to tell Jen what was wrong; he feared she get sad and suicidal again. What was bothering him was the way Brynn had looked when he had visited her that morning at the Psychiatric Hospital. She had looked awfully sick, pale and crazy; not like the girl he had dated months ago. He hadn't loved her, really, but he had liked her, and now she was crazy, because of him.

He had left her alone when she had been in danger, and now she was worse than dead, she wasn't even a person anymore. Brynn was an animal, a caged one. She had been crouched in a corner of the room, pulling her hair, and crying while she looked at the ceiling, she made no sense at all, and didn't seem to recognize him.

When he had met Brynn at the coffee shop, he had picked her as the best possible candidate to make Jen jealous. She was so beautiful physically, and she wasn't such a bad person. He hadn't known the danger he was putting her in when he chose her, he just wanted to use her to make Jen jealous for a couple of months. And now she was.

He left the phrase hanging in his mind; he didn't know what Brynn was now, he just didn't. He wondered what Jen wanted with Brynn, when she had asked him not to break up with her, and he also wondered what Brynn had to do with The Mistress.

He heard footsteps behind him, and turned around. It was Jen, her eyes were tearful. "Have you been reading my mind?" he asked, looking away from her.

"You've been broadcasting, actually," she said.

"Jen, honey, I--" he began; she put a hand on his lips.

"Shhh! It's okay, baby," she said. "Nothing's wrong."

"It's just--"

"I know, Alex."

"What did you--?"

"She was selling files to the mutants, honey. She was stealing files from your computer, and selling them to The Mistress."

"She what?!" he asked, surprised. "Jen, if she did, then we are in serious trouble, she probably stole files that contained the design of the new weapons we have been preparing for you guys."

"That's probably it," she said. "Then it is bad, but it's also good," she told him.

"How?"

"Alex, use your brain!!" she said, suddenly annoyed. "You are one of the best strategists we have here on the force!!"

"All right," he said. He looked away for a few minutes and then looked back at her. "They will move so they can test our strategies, they will avoid the strategies we have."

"Right," she said. "Let's go back to the office, and check the evidence we have."

"Let's go," he said. He took her hand, and looked at her eyes, smiling. "Jen," he started.

She looked at him. "Don't read my mind," he complained, she chuckled. "Before we go in there, I want to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"Will you marry me?" he asked. She smiled broadly and jumped to him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Oh, yes, I will!!" she whispered in his ear.

They looked at each other and did what they hadn't done the first time they got engaged; they kissed.

*******

"Jen," Trip said when they got back in. "I have a list of all the children and their parents, including the three new cases."

"And?"

"Not all of them are scientists' children," he said. "Now, that would have discouraged anyone else, but I kept looking."

"And?" Alex asked.

"ALL of them are GRANDCHILDREN to scientists," he informed them.

"Really?"

"Yeah, see, here," he said, showing her a list.

"Very good," she said.

"Not quite," Trip said.

"Why?"

"All these scientists worked together on a project many years ago, it involved genetic manipulation," he said.

"That's no surprise."

"The project was shut down, when all of them became suspected of creating mutants, and leaving them, like Nadira said. Unregistered and undocumented research."

"Trip, would you please leave the mystery for later?"

"Ok," he took a deep breath, "There were fifteen members on the research team. Now, whoever The Mistress is she is taking these people's grandchildren, and she has already taken fourteen of them."

"But they ate a pair of twins," Katie noted. "That can't be right."

"It's quite simple; both grandparents were members of the team, one twin for each one of them."

"Please, keep going," Jen said, holding Alex's hand tightly.

"Ok, the fifteenth member of the team doesn't have any grandchildren yet, only a grown son," he said.

"Who is it? We have to assume they are going after him if your theory is right, it won't matter that he's not a child," Alex urged.

"It's you," Trip said simply. "Your mother was the fifteenth member of this research team, and she was the one leading it."

to be continued.