Chapter 17

"I'm scared," Jen admitted. Alex kissed her shoulder.

"Hey, it's ok," he assured her, wrapping his arms tighter around her. She shuddered and he caressed her hair. "I'm telling you I'll be fine," he insisted.

"I can't help it," she said. "I've seen you die once, and I don't want to lose you again."

"You won't," he assured her. She turned her head and they kissed softly. "Now, go to sleep."

"I can't believe you actually asked me to do that!" she said playfully. They both broke into a laugh.

*******

"My plan is almost complete," The Mistress said. "Now I only need bait."

"What will you use as bait?" Tatag asked.

"Something none of my mutants can digest," she answered.

*******

The next day, they were all once again seated in their meeting room. They heard hurried steps in the corridor and the door slammed open.

"Guys, good news!" Lucas said happily, entering their meeting room, in Alex's office.

"What is it?" Jen asked.

"We processed the children's bodies, and we found saliva on them!"

"Did it match any mutant we know?" Alex asked.

"No."

"So, now we know there are more mutants than we think," he said.

"Please, tell me you didn't think Tatag and Catgat were the Mistress's only mutants!" Katie said.

"Well, he did have reasons to think that, Katie," Jen commented. "When Catgat attacked my mind, he said something about destroying me and then returning to the base to be destroyed, and I told Alex."

"You think she does destroy them?" Trip asked. "Because if she does, then she's even worse than we thought."

"I don't know, Trip."

"Anyway, the DNA has a peculiarity," Lucas announced, getting everyone's attention back. "The DNA chain's tail is exactly the same for all of them."

"It is?"

"Yes. Here it is, the last twelve nucleotides, they go like this: G- T- A- C- A- T- T- A- G- G- A- T." Lucas informed them.

Jen, Alex and Trip all stayed very quite for a moment and then. "I'VE GOT IT!!" they all said at once.

"What?" Lucas and Katie asked back.

"The mutants' names," Trip said. "They are parts of their DNA chains that look like words."

"Lots of A's, G's and T's," Katie added, smiling.

"I've got something else," Jen said. "How many different subjects have we got?"

"Eight."

"Then I'm right," she said. "What can we say if we have eight different subjects from the same gang that have the same DNA tail?"

"That they've been engineered," Katie suggested.

Jen nodded. "Yes, and they've been bred by someone with a big ego. I bet that DNA tail has no function for the mutants, but it does have one for the person who created them; probably power's that person favorite thing about herself."

"Herself?"

"Yes, she is The Mistress; I don't think a man would like to pass as a woman, besides if she is this egocentric, then she wants everyone to know it's a woman controlling all these mutants and doing all this damage."

"Are you suggesting this is a signature?" Alex said; his face was suddenly dark.

"Yes," she answered. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"It's impossible for two people to have the same DNA naturally," he said. "I was engineered gene by gene, chromosome by chromosome, nucleotide by nucleotide to be like my father's greatest hero, Wesley Collins," he told them.

"But, why? I mean, Ransik--"

"Don't you see? Ransik didn't change history; he did what he was supposed to do, he went back in time and provoked the creation of the Silver Guardians."

"Where are you going?" Jen asked.

"My mother, who is a genetic engineer, designed my DNA precisely," he said. "She changed a few things from Wes's original chain but ninety-five percent of my DNA matches Wesley Collins's completely."

"I still don't get it."

"The five percent of my DNA that doesn't match Wes's was designed by my mother, that's the head and the tail of my chain," He took a deep breath. "My DNA chain starts with G- T- A- C- A- T and ends with T- A- G- G- A- T."

"That's the signature."

"Yes," he said. "Do you think my mother's got anything to do with this?"

"I don't think so," Jen said. "But someone who worked with her in that project does, and maybe that's the project signature, it happens often."

"Maybe," he said. He didn't sound convinced. "Trip, you had something else to say?"

"No, just that the mutants' names aren't Catgat and Tatag, they are called Cytosine-Adenine-Thymine-Guanine-Adenine-Thymine, and."

"We got it," Lucas said, putting his hand on Trip's shoulder.

"So we have a DNA partial," Katie said.

"It's too small to get anything out of it."

"We'll run the signature and try to match it to someone," Lucas said.

"Did you get anything regarding the posed bodies?" Jen asked.

"We got a couple of matches, both improbable," Katie said.

"We are missing something, and it's something big," Alex said seriously.

********

"Daddy, do you think she will try to get me back for something else? I mean something evil?" Nadira asked.

"I hope not, Nadira," Ransik answered, holding his daughter's skinny hand. They both sat outside Time Force headquarters, waiting for the Rangers to come out.

"There they are," Nadira said, pointing at them.

"Let's go," he said, and they walked towards the group. "Time Rangers!" Ransik called. They all looked.

"Ransik!" Jen said, surprised. "Is everything okay?"

"No, it isn't."

"What's wrong?"

"The Mistress wants Nadira, and she's after us. In that case, I want somebody else to know everything I know about her."

"Okay, let's find a place where we can talk," Alex said.

"No," Ransik said. "I want her as my confidant," Ransik said, pointing at Jen. "I want to talk to her in private."

"Not possible," Alex answered sternly.

"I'll go," Jen said. "If he tries anything stupid, I'll send him flying against the closest brick wall," she told Alex, and then she turned to Ransik. "Not minding really how many other things he has to go through to get there."

They both walked away from the group, and the rest stood there, surrounding Nadira. She noticed this, and not without a bit of annoyance she said, "I'm going to be fine."

"We don't know that," Lucas said. She rolled her eyes.

"Do you know what he's going to tell her?" Alex asked.

"No," she said. "He wouldn't tell me anything,"

There was an awkward silence. And then, there was the flash of a laser shot, followed by a blast and a scream. And last, Nadira lay on the floor, unmoving.

To be continued..