Chapter 18
"Are you sure of what you're saying?" Alex asked her.
"Of course I'm sure," she said. "There was a mutant in that room, and it took Wes with it."
"There's only one problem with that," Eric said bitterly. "There is no way in the world a mutant can get in this house undetected."
"There's one," Jen answered in the same tone. "It's called teleportation."
"Teleportation?" Eric asked in a mocking tone. "So the mutant teleported into the bathroom, grabbed Wes in his underwear and teleported back to where it came from?"
"Yes," Jen said, ignoring his sarcasm. She looked at Alex, who seemed lost in thought.
"Something on your mind, handsome?" she asked him. He looked at her as if it was the first time he had ever seen her.
"How did Mom get access to teleportation technology?" he asked. "Time Force just began toying with it."
Jen looked at him, and frowned, trying hard to think of a way. "Did you have anything to do with developing the officer gloves? I noticed you knew very well how to work them," she asked out of nowhere.
"What has that got to do with anything?" he asked, slightly annoyed at the change of subject.
"Did you?" she insisted.
"Yes, I was on the team of designers, why?"
"Did you ever take any of that information home? Anything at all?" she continued her cryptic questioning.
"Some of it," he answered. She gave him a meaningful look, but he was unable to guess its meaning.
"What exactly?" she inquired.
"Some information on the weapons and gadgets included in it," he answered naturally.
Jen sent him the image of a blonde woman with a beautiful body he remembered as the last girlfriend he had had before marrying Jen. "Brynn," he said in a barely audible whisper.
"She gave your mother information she stole from your computer," Jen said.
"Yeah, but Mom is no computer genius," Alex refuted. "Even if she got the information, she would have been unable to understand it completely, much less reproduce it."
"Alex, your mother is a criminal genius, who has a great criminal organization with tentacles spread all over the city!" Jen spat, annoyed. "Even Ransik worked for her! If crime in the future was a mafia, your mother would be the Don!" He snorted at the comparison but accepted that she was right.
"So, you think she has technicians working for her?" he asked.
"I don't think she made all those mutants all by herself. Some of the mutants, like Tatag, felt they were special because she had made them personally," Jen reasoned.
"So, how does this help us rescue Wes?" Eric asked suddenly. Both officers looked at him, as if noticing he was still standing there.
"There's no way it can help us," Alex said softly. "The teleportation device is designed to not leave any trace behind, so the officers can't be tracked and followed. The idea is that it serves as a form of escape."
"And even I lost track of their thoughts after they teleported," Jen said. "Mind you, I could still find them, but it will take me a long time to search each and every place in the city, looking for Wes."
"Get to it, then," Eric barked.
"It's not that easy," Jen said. "You see, doing that might cost me my health, my powers and even my identity. I would go in and out of so many minds so fast I would stop remembering who I am, or I could even get lost and never be able to come back to my own body," she explained, holding Alex's hand. At the sight of Eric's face, she added: "I'm really sorry."
"Well, sorry doesn't help us find Wes!"
"But Tao does," Jen said, her eyes flashing. "And so does Buda."
"Oh, great, let's all meditate!" Eric said angrily.
"No," Alex said, his face also showing a smile. "Tao and Buda are two robots Trip made for us; they are better versions of Circuit, faster, smarter and smaller."
"I'll wake Trip, he can configure all three robots to search for Wes," Jen said and she accompanied the words with actions.
"Do you think I should tell Jessica?" Eric asked Alex.
"I think she would want to know," Alex answered. "But I don't know if it's a good idea to worry her like that right now, she's had enough."
*********************************
Lying on her bed, with her eyes wide open and filled with tears, Jessica began to hear the noises outside, as if everybody was up again. What's going on out there? she thought to herself, feeling her heart shrink even more. She had a bad feeling.
She decided to get out of bed and go out, to find out, or at least to ask them to shut up. Opening the door, she saw everyone was gathered in a room down the hall, where Trip and Lucas (she had heard their names at some point) were sleeping. She walked there, wrapping a robe around her well built body.
"Yes, you have to try to find him as fast as possible," she heard Alex say. His voice, she noticed, was slightly graver than Wes's.
"His life is in no immediate danger, because her life would be affected by his death, considering Alex's father wouldn't have existed either," Jen explained to them.
"So, where shall we start?" it was Trip, or so she thought. She didn't dare to approach the door anymore, in case any of them saw her.
"I think it's safe to assume she didn't take him to the ocean, so let's start looking in the three directions that have more chance. Buda you take north, Tao, south and Circuit, east," Alex ordered.
"Are you sure we shouldn't alert Jessica, after all, he's still her husband," Eric commented.
"No need for that," Jen said. "She's standing in the hallway." There was an exclamation of guilty surprise at her words.
"And now you tell us!" Katie chided.
Jessica was about to go back to her bedroom, when the door opened completely and Alex walked out of the room. She was startled by his sudden appearance, but she didn't run, because he offered her his hand.
"Come in," he offered. She kept her arms folded and her eyes away from him. "Please, we didn't want to wake you," he assured her.
"What happened?" Her voice was small and shaky. She already had an idea of what had happened, but she needed confirmation.
"Wes was kidnapped," he told her bluntly.
Her eyes flashed with fear and pain, but she swallowed her emotions fast. "Are you doing anything to rescue him?" she asked coldly.
"We are doing our best," he promised.
"All of you?"
"Yes," he said, a sympathetic smile on his lips. "Jen is helping too."
"Well, if anything new happens, let me know," she asked, turned on her heel and walked back to her bedroom where she locked herself in.
After the door was closed, Jessica leaned against it, breathing hard and irregularly. Her husband had been kidnapped. What if he died? What if he died and the last words she had said to him where 'not now Wesley"? At least she thought she had a guarantee that Wes was still alive, and that was the fact Alex was still there. Hadn't they said he would disappear if Wes died?
With silent tears running down her cheeks she sat on Wes's side of the bed and buried her face in his pillow for a moment. Her hand sought out a picture of them he had on his night table, and she caressed his face in the image, as she mentally prayed he was still alive and safe.
******************************
Wes heard voices. Voices he didn't know. Various female and several male ones. Most of them sounded like growls, like the voices of the many mutants he had fought. Only one of the females sounded human. His head was killing him. He tried to open his eyes, but his face was covered by a black hood, so he closed them again.
He couldn't understand what the voices were saying, but he felt cold, and he also heard giggling. He supposed, as his reality and identity came back to him slowly, he was still in his underwear, and he thought, ashamedly, he must look like a sex slave there on his knees, with his hands tied behind his back and a hood covering his face.
The voices kept talking and the human one, who sounded authoritarian, ordered something. He felt claws sting his chest as he was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled upwards, and more claws scraped the base of his neck and his cheek as the black hood was torn from his head. Light, strong artificially white light, hit his eyes through his eyelids.
"Cute," said the human voice. He raised his eyebrows as much as he could, as if hoping they would pull his eyelids open, because they refused to open by themselves. "But my version is much better," the female voice continued. Wes felt her hand on his chin. "He still has many flaws Alexander doesn't have."
Alexander? Where had he heard that name before? Oh, right, Jen's husband. His mind was still numb and his eyelids still refused to open.
"How much do you know about your wife?" she asked in a cooing voice, as if she was talking to a puppy.
Wes tried to talk, but his throat was sore and dry. "Water," he managed to plead, his numb mind only focusing on his main necessity.
"Well, that's not much," said a childish female voice from a little further away.
"Don't be stupid, he's thirsty," said another voice that sounded as far as the first one.
Someone sighed in exasperation next to his face. "Get him water then." This voice sounded older and a lot less enthusiastic about his presence. Wes shuddered. He was really cold now that he was finally becoming more and more aware of his surroundings.
"Cold, are you, cherub?" the same voice asked. He felt himself being wrapped with a warm blanket. "Sorry, I'm sure we could have found a much better moment to kidnap you, for example when you were dressed, but it would have been a lot messier."
Kidnap? His mind repeated the word. Kidnap. Dressed. Kidnap you when you were dressed. He cursed softly.
"What was that, dear?" the woman asked. He kept trying to force his eyelids to open, but they kept trying to shield his eyes from the bright light.
"Here!" said the childish voice he had heard before. He felt a bottle, or glass, he couldn't tell, pressed against his lips and a big gulp of cold water was forced into his mouth. He swallowed, and it felt like glory. He thrust his lips forward, looking for another sip that was delivered quickly.
Finally, now he felt considerably more comforted, his upper eyelids began to separate themselves from the lower ones. A small line of bright light hit his eyes directly as they opened, and he frowned protectively against the light.
He felt a hand over his eyebrows that shielded his eyes from the direct light. "Open your eyes, cherub," the woman said softly. He tried again, with the protection of her hand he could open them some more. He focused his blue eyes on the woman near him, and saw she was in her late fifties, but she looked well preserved, young and energetic.
"Welcome cherub," she said to him, when she saw him looking at her. "You don't mind if I call you cherub, do you? You see, I'm feeling kind of empty- nested lately." Wes shook his head no. As far as she didn't torture him to death, she could call him whatever she felt like. "Good. Now, you are going to stay with us for a while, so we want to make you feel at home, we don't want to harm you in any way, cherub. So, is there anything you need?" Her voice was kind, but the hairs in the back of Wes's neck stood on end; he could feel danger.
And when his eyes got used to the light he could see the reason. He was surrounded by mutants! Female and male, monstrous and human-looking, growling and sighing mutants. All kinds of mutants, about thirty of them.
"What's this?" he asked with a hoarse voice much unlike his own. "Where am I?"
"Oh, where are your manners, children?" the woman asked the mutants. "Say hello to the cherub."
"Hello, cherub," the mutants said in a child-like chorus.
Wes was open-mouthed. He looked at the woman, scared. "There, there, cherub," she cooed at him, caressing his shoulder. "They are not going to harm you," she assured him.
"What's going on here?" he asked, directly to her face.
"We brought you here for several reasons, but the most important one is because we are all dying to know everything there is to know about your wife," she told him. Wes blinked several times, trying to get the information to sink in.
"On your feet, cherub," the woman ordered him. He obeyed clumsily. "We need to find you some clothes," she pointed out. "I wish Nadira was here, she always knew where to find the best clothes!"
Wes's eyes opened wider. Nadira?! he thought with trepidation, swallowing hard. "Well, now go and get some sleep, tomorrow will be a brand new day, cherub," the woman told him.
"W-um-who are you?" he asked in a hoarse voice as he was taken away.
"The mutants call me Mistress," she told him. "But you can call me 'Mom,'" she purred, kissing his forehead.
Wes's mind got all numb again. Mom?! he asked mentally. He shook his head gently (it hurt too much to do it harder) and looked around, his mouth opening wide again when he recognized his environment.
He was on top of the rebuilt clock tower.
To be continued.
"Are you sure of what you're saying?" Alex asked her.
"Of course I'm sure," she said. "There was a mutant in that room, and it took Wes with it."
"There's only one problem with that," Eric said bitterly. "There is no way in the world a mutant can get in this house undetected."
"There's one," Jen answered in the same tone. "It's called teleportation."
"Teleportation?" Eric asked in a mocking tone. "So the mutant teleported into the bathroom, grabbed Wes in his underwear and teleported back to where it came from?"
"Yes," Jen said, ignoring his sarcasm. She looked at Alex, who seemed lost in thought.
"Something on your mind, handsome?" she asked him. He looked at her as if it was the first time he had ever seen her.
"How did Mom get access to teleportation technology?" he asked. "Time Force just began toying with it."
Jen looked at him, and frowned, trying hard to think of a way. "Did you have anything to do with developing the officer gloves? I noticed you knew very well how to work them," she asked out of nowhere.
"What has that got to do with anything?" he asked, slightly annoyed at the change of subject.
"Did you?" she insisted.
"Yes, I was on the team of designers, why?"
"Did you ever take any of that information home? Anything at all?" she continued her cryptic questioning.
"Some of it," he answered. She gave him a meaningful look, but he was unable to guess its meaning.
"What exactly?" she inquired.
"Some information on the weapons and gadgets included in it," he answered naturally.
Jen sent him the image of a blonde woman with a beautiful body he remembered as the last girlfriend he had had before marrying Jen. "Brynn," he said in a barely audible whisper.
"She gave your mother information she stole from your computer," Jen said.
"Yeah, but Mom is no computer genius," Alex refuted. "Even if she got the information, she would have been unable to understand it completely, much less reproduce it."
"Alex, your mother is a criminal genius, who has a great criminal organization with tentacles spread all over the city!" Jen spat, annoyed. "Even Ransik worked for her! If crime in the future was a mafia, your mother would be the Don!" He snorted at the comparison but accepted that she was right.
"So, you think she has technicians working for her?" he asked.
"I don't think she made all those mutants all by herself. Some of the mutants, like Tatag, felt they were special because she had made them personally," Jen reasoned.
"So, how does this help us rescue Wes?" Eric asked suddenly. Both officers looked at him, as if noticing he was still standing there.
"There's no way it can help us," Alex said softly. "The teleportation device is designed to not leave any trace behind, so the officers can't be tracked and followed. The idea is that it serves as a form of escape."
"And even I lost track of their thoughts after they teleported," Jen said. "Mind you, I could still find them, but it will take me a long time to search each and every place in the city, looking for Wes."
"Get to it, then," Eric barked.
"It's not that easy," Jen said. "You see, doing that might cost me my health, my powers and even my identity. I would go in and out of so many minds so fast I would stop remembering who I am, or I could even get lost and never be able to come back to my own body," she explained, holding Alex's hand. At the sight of Eric's face, she added: "I'm really sorry."
"Well, sorry doesn't help us find Wes!"
"But Tao does," Jen said, her eyes flashing. "And so does Buda."
"Oh, great, let's all meditate!" Eric said angrily.
"No," Alex said, his face also showing a smile. "Tao and Buda are two robots Trip made for us; they are better versions of Circuit, faster, smarter and smaller."
"I'll wake Trip, he can configure all three robots to search for Wes," Jen said and she accompanied the words with actions.
"Do you think I should tell Jessica?" Eric asked Alex.
"I think she would want to know," Alex answered. "But I don't know if it's a good idea to worry her like that right now, she's had enough."
*********************************
Lying on her bed, with her eyes wide open and filled with tears, Jessica began to hear the noises outside, as if everybody was up again. What's going on out there? she thought to herself, feeling her heart shrink even more. She had a bad feeling.
She decided to get out of bed and go out, to find out, or at least to ask them to shut up. Opening the door, she saw everyone was gathered in a room down the hall, where Trip and Lucas (she had heard their names at some point) were sleeping. She walked there, wrapping a robe around her well built body.
"Yes, you have to try to find him as fast as possible," she heard Alex say. His voice, she noticed, was slightly graver than Wes's.
"His life is in no immediate danger, because her life would be affected by his death, considering Alex's father wouldn't have existed either," Jen explained to them.
"So, where shall we start?" it was Trip, or so she thought. She didn't dare to approach the door anymore, in case any of them saw her.
"I think it's safe to assume she didn't take him to the ocean, so let's start looking in the three directions that have more chance. Buda you take north, Tao, south and Circuit, east," Alex ordered.
"Are you sure we shouldn't alert Jessica, after all, he's still her husband," Eric commented.
"No need for that," Jen said. "She's standing in the hallway." There was an exclamation of guilty surprise at her words.
"And now you tell us!" Katie chided.
Jessica was about to go back to her bedroom, when the door opened completely and Alex walked out of the room. She was startled by his sudden appearance, but she didn't run, because he offered her his hand.
"Come in," he offered. She kept her arms folded and her eyes away from him. "Please, we didn't want to wake you," he assured her.
"What happened?" Her voice was small and shaky. She already had an idea of what had happened, but she needed confirmation.
"Wes was kidnapped," he told her bluntly.
Her eyes flashed with fear and pain, but she swallowed her emotions fast. "Are you doing anything to rescue him?" she asked coldly.
"We are doing our best," he promised.
"All of you?"
"Yes," he said, a sympathetic smile on his lips. "Jen is helping too."
"Well, if anything new happens, let me know," she asked, turned on her heel and walked back to her bedroom where she locked herself in.
After the door was closed, Jessica leaned against it, breathing hard and irregularly. Her husband had been kidnapped. What if he died? What if he died and the last words she had said to him where 'not now Wesley"? At least she thought she had a guarantee that Wes was still alive, and that was the fact Alex was still there. Hadn't they said he would disappear if Wes died?
With silent tears running down her cheeks she sat on Wes's side of the bed and buried her face in his pillow for a moment. Her hand sought out a picture of them he had on his night table, and she caressed his face in the image, as she mentally prayed he was still alive and safe.
******************************
Wes heard voices. Voices he didn't know. Various female and several male ones. Most of them sounded like growls, like the voices of the many mutants he had fought. Only one of the females sounded human. His head was killing him. He tried to open his eyes, but his face was covered by a black hood, so he closed them again.
He couldn't understand what the voices were saying, but he felt cold, and he also heard giggling. He supposed, as his reality and identity came back to him slowly, he was still in his underwear, and he thought, ashamedly, he must look like a sex slave there on his knees, with his hands tied behind his back and a hood covering his face.
The voices kept talking and the human one, who sounded authoritarian, ordered something. He felt claws sting his chest as he was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled upwards, and more claws scraped the base of his neck and his cheek as the black hood was torn from his head. Light, strong artificially white light, hit his eyes through his eyelids.
"Cute," said the human voice. He raised his eyebrows as much as he could, as if hoping they would pull his eyelids open, because they refused to open by themselves. "But my version is much better," the female voice continued. Wes felt her hand on his chin. "He still has many flaws Alexander doesn't have."
Alexander? Where had he heard that name before? Oh, right, Jen's husband. His mind was still numb and his eyelids still refused to open.
"How much do you know about your wife?" she asked in a cooing voice, as if she was talking to a puppy.
Wes tried to talk, but his throat was sore and dry. "Water," he managed to plead, his numb mind only focusing on his main necessity.
"Well, that's not much," said a childish female voice from a little further away.
"Don't be stupid, he's thirsty," said another voice that sounded as far as the first one.
Someone sighed in exasperation next to his face. "Get him water then." This voice sounded older and a lot less enthusiastic about his presence. Wes shuddered. He was really cold now that he was finally becoming more and more aware of his surroundings.
"Cold, are you, cherub?" the same voice asked. He felt himself being wrapped with a warm blanket. "Sorry, I'm sure we could have found a much better moment to kidnap you, for example when you were dressed, but it would have been a lot messier."
Kidnap? His mind repeated the word. Kidnap. Dressed. Kidnap you when you were dressed. He cursed softly.
"What was that, dear?" the woman asked. He kept trying to force his eyelids to open, but they kept trying to shield his eyes from the bright light.
"Here!" said the childish voice he had heard before. He felt a bottle, or glass, he couldn't tell, pressed against his lips and a big gulp of cold water was forced into his mouth. He swallowed, and it felt like glory. He thrust his lips forward, looking for another sip that was delivered quickly.
Finally, now he felt considerably more comforted, his upper eyelids began to separate themselves from the lower ones. A small line of bright light hit his eyes directly as they opened, and he frowned protectively against the light.
He felt a hand over his eyebrows that shielded his eyes from the direct light. "Open your eyes, cherub," the woman said softly. He tried again, with the protection of her hand he could open them some more. He focused his blue eyes on the woman near him, and saw she was in her late fifties, but she looked well preserved, young and energetic.
"Welcome cherub," she said to him, when she saw him looking at her. "You don't mind if I call you cherub, do you? You see, I'm feeling kind of empty- nested lately." Wes shook his head no. As far as she didn't torture him to death, she could call him whatever she felt like. "Good. Now, you are going to stay with us for a while, so we want to make you feel at home, we don't want to harm you in any way, cherub. So, is there anything you need?" Her voice was kind, but the hairs in the back of Wes's neck stood on end; he could feel danger.
And when his eyes got used to the light he could see the reason. He was surrounded by mutants! Female and male, monstrous and human-looking, growling and sighing mutants. All kinds of mutants, about thirty of them.
"What's this?" he asked with a hoarse voice much unlike his own. "Where am I?"
"Oh, where are your manners, children?" the woman asked the mutants. "Say hello to the cherub."
"Hello, cherub," the mutants said in a child-like chorus.
Wes was open-mouthed. He looked at the woman, scared. "There, there, cherub," she cooed at him, caressing his shoulder. "They are not going to harm you," she assured him.
"What's going on here?" he asked, directly to her face.
"We brought you here for several reasons, but the most important one is because we are all dying to know everything there is to know about your wife," she told him. Wes blinked several times, trying to get the information to sink in.
"On your feet, cherub," the woman ordered him. He obeyed clumsily. "We need to find you some clothes," she pointed out. "I wish Nadira was here, she always knew where to find the best clothes!"
Wes's eyes opened wider. Nadira?! he thought with trepidation, swallowing hard. "Well, now go and get some sleep, tomorrow will be a brand new day, cherub," the woman told him.
"W-um-who are you?" he asked in a hoarse voice as he was taken away.
"The mutants call me Mistress," she told him. "But you can call me 'Mom,'" she purred, kissing his forehead.
Wes's mind got all numb again. Mom?! he asked mentally. He shook his head gently (it hurt too much to do it harder) and looked around, his mouth opening wide again when he recognized his environment.
He was on top of the rebuilt clock tower.
To be continued.
