Chapter One

Raine shifted restlessly, trying to keep her impatience from showing but didn't do a very good job of it. She hated waiting. Hated, hated, hated it. Computers never made her wait - they were nice and logical and responded immediately, and why didn't anything else *ever* happen on time around here? She glared at the heavy gates, willing the transport with the new mutant to appear but just like the past five times in as many minutes, nothing happened.

God, she hated waiting.

Major Clive Bancroft - 'Major' or 'Sir' to the mutant kids who found themselves under his command - sent her a look, his face impassive as ever, and Raine forced herself to stop fidgeting. The Major had already from the beginning treated them as soldiers and the small group had quickly learned to behave like that. Being chewed out verbally was never a pleasant experience and not something they wanted to experience anymore than they had to.

Come on...how long can it take? This is the military, right? What happened to being precise?

She shifted again and sent her commanding officer a quick look to make sure he wasn't getting annoyed with her.

She could have been inside instead, in her nice comfortable office chair with her laptop and all that wonderful, expensive computer equipment they'd given her, but no. She was here, and Lacee and Harry were inside, probably enjoying themselves way more than she was.

And why did *she* have to be here, anyway? Why not one of the others? So maybe she was closest to the new kid's age...who cared? She had more important things to do than waiting here -like gathering the information they'd told her to. But no. She was stuck out here, waiting for some annoying little brat that probably couldn't fight for shit, and...

Ugh.

Another look from the Major, and Raine once more suppressed her feelings of restlessness. One year, and she still hadn't gotten used to it yet. The beginning of yet another restless motion was cut short as the gates finally opened, letting in a dark green military van.

She perked up, partly from the break in boredom, partly from curiosity and watched silently as her companion approached the van as it came to a stop. She wasn't sure what to expect - they'd quickly learned to make sure that her computer couldn't access the local network, so all she knew were the few bit and pieces she and her two teammates been told.

One of the doors to the vehicle opened and a boy stepped out, closing his eyes briefly as the sunlight hit him, then looked up and took a cautious look around.

Him? They picked him?! Raine thought incredulously. She'd expected someone who looked young - they'd been told he was sixteen, after all - but this...no. He was several inches shorter than her, and she wasn't exactly tall to begin with. Several inches shorter and with an almost effeminate look to him...no. They had to be kidding.

She could almost feel her companion tense as he got a good look at this latest addition to the team, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that the man was not at all pleased with what he saw.

And who could blame him? They'd been stuck here for two months while their 'employers' had tried to find a replacement for the missing forth member of their team, and this was the best they had been able to find? He didn't even look strong enough to hold a gun.

"Duthie Pacol?" Clive asked, his voice impassive as ever, and the boy nodded with a wary look.

"Yeah."

Clive's eyes narrowed slightly. "The correct response, recruit, is 'yes, sir'. I hope I won't have repeat that."

Duthie's eyes widened, clearly not having expected that reaction, and quickly nodded. "Yes, sir."

Clive watched him for another moment, then nodded slowly. "Good." He motioned briefly towards Raine, and she felt the boy's attention turn to her instead. "Private Raine Slyder - she's in charge of intelligence for the Jackals."

The boy nodded and as expected he relaxed slightly at the sight of someone his own age, which was the main reason why Raine had been stuck out here in the first place. To calm down the poor little new mutie kid.

Talk about a waste of time, she snorted, but did what she could to keep her annoyance from showing. After all, an order was an order and you didn't argue with it...no matter how pointless it seemed.

As she watched, Duthie followed Clive as they headed towards the storage buildings to get his equipment and with a small sigh she headed after them, preparing herself for another hour of boredom.

- - - - - -

"The new kid arrived."

Harry raised and eyebrow, taking in the obvious annoyance on Raine's face and sent her a deliberately cheerful smile, not bothering to hide his amusement with it all. "And? We're not mind readers, love - give us a little to work with here."

Raine snorted as she crossed the room and sat down in a chair, her annoyance obvious. "You want a little to work with? You've got it, Roberts."

"You're not making sense." This time the comment came from Lacee and Raine make a small, frustrated sound.

"He's sixteen. He's shorter than I am. He's effeminate and he doesn't even look strong enough to hold a gun. Or put in shorter terms: we're screwed."

Lacee frowned slightly as she considered this new information. "What's his power, anyway? Telepathy?"

"No...he told me that he can make people go temporarily blind and deaf," Raine replied. "He didn't tell how he does it, though."

"But still, it's based on his mind," Harry commented, still with lingering amusement. "You shouldn't judge a guy by his size."

Raine snorted, her view of that comment pretty obvious. "But guess who'll have to haul his ass of the fire when it turns out he can't even defend himself?"

"They wouldn't have picked him if he'd been helpless," Lacee pointed out.

Raine shook her head in disagreement. "Yes, they would - we haven't been on a mission for two months, and you know it was a complete disaster when they tried to get another team to handle our usual jobs. They're getting desperate - they'll pick anything that even *looks* like a mutant."

"I think I'll reserve judgement until I actually see the kid myself," Harry commented dryly.

"And get the chance to scare the life out of him by 'accidentally' turning on his TV and radio in the middle of the night?" Raine guessed. "The Major's going to skin you alive if you try that trick again, you know that."

Another cheerful smile from Harry. "But it's an honest accident. I just haven't gained complete control of my powers yet."

Raine rolled her eyes. "Right. But who knows when we'll see him again? Last time it took days before they were done with the new recruit. He probably won't show up until tonight, at the very earliest."

And even that was an optimistic guess - giving the kid his equipment and a quick tour wouldn't take too long. But the evaluations...Raine remembered them all too well. They liked being on the safe side here, and a psychological evaluation while the 'patient' was still tired and confused was more likely to show possible weaknesses than the normal prison tests were. So yes, evening at the very earliest, more likely the day after...and that only if they found the kid acceptable. That didn't always happen.

"Hopefully, he'll last longer than the last one," Lacee commented and stretched out lazily on her bed, her voice showing no real regret. The last one had been a pompous prick, they all agreed on that. A telepath, yes, and powerful, but still a pompous, annoying prick, and the fact that it was his own overconfidence that had gotten him killed had only added a sense of fairness to it all.

"That wouldn't take much," Raine replied, her attention already turned to her laptop, fingers dancing across the keys as she started to sort through the files she'd downloaded before her involuntarily break. "He's what...the fourth one?"

"Fifth," Harry corrected. "There was one more before you came along."

It wasn't a very good statistic, everyone on the base knew that. Every team needed a mutant that would be able to take down the harder targets from a distance - on rare occasions a tame telepath, but more often someone like Duthie - and the fact that none of these mutants lasted very long with the Jackals was a constant annoyance to the people in charge. Finding someone with the powers needed was never easy, but it had to be done - because the team was good, everyone on the base knew that as well. They were certainly better than the rest, and without a fourth member they would not be able to go on missions.

It was an annoyance to the military, and even more so to the team itself. Being stuck at the base for months at a time was boring to say the least.

"If they let him through, maybe we'll finally get to do something again," Lacee remarked. "I feel useless here. Nothing to do, nothing to see, just...waiting."

"Well, judging from this we should get a new target soon," Raine said absently, nodding at her laptop. "Unless they just told me to hack something to keep me from getting bored."

Harry closed his eyes contentedly, not bothering to look at his teammate as he replied. "Considered what happened last time you got bored, I wouldn't put it above them."

He smiled at the vaguely annoyed look he knew would follow, and Raine watched him for another moment before she turned back to her computer. "It's not like I found anything useful back then, anyway," she mumbled, her fingers never stopping their quick motions over the keyboard. Now that the hacking itself had been handled she could feel her restlessness return, and she sighed softly at the thought of the many files she'd have to decrypt.

Long day ahead.

- - - - - -

And to the reviewers...

Cajun Rose - *mock bow* Thank you. I aim to please.

Koneko Tenshi - a cameo? It might be possible. Let me see what I can figure out.