And I'm updating on Christmas eve now...who else is impressed? This is a super long chapter because I won't be updating tomorrow or the day after that and probably not the day after that either. The joys of family Christmas's, especially divorced ones...I get two Christmas days.
I hope you all enjoy this update. Thank you to all my reviewers. You are all extremely cool. And to everybody who is reading this...why haven't you reviewed already?
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
***
'Shalimar,' came Adam's voice over the comlink.
She looked up from the book she had been reading in bed. It was late and it had been a long day but she couldn't seem to get to sleep. She had been trying to lull herself into the world of the unconscious.
'Yeah,' she said quietly, seriously hoping that it wasn't anything major.
'I need you in the lab.'
She sighed deeply and closed the book. She got out of the bed leaning on everything heavily, aware that if she didn't she'd probably fall over from exhaustion.
She eventually made her way to the lab, opening the door by walking into it with her shoulder. She looked around her as she saw everyone gathered there already. Her hand automatically raised itself to her head and she pulled her hair out of the messy braid it had been in. She shook it out quickly, trying to make herself look natural in front of the group, especially Brennan. She walked over to the bed in the middle of the room and hauled herself onto it.
'You alright there Shal?' Jesse asked, a smirk playing on his lips.
'Its 1 in the morning, don't make me hurt you,' she bit back.
Jesse turned in his chair to face the computer monitor he had been working at. He knew Shalimar's moods like he knew the back of his hand. And he had been in Sanctuary long enough to know that when Shalimar was tired she could be worse than Atilla the Hun.
'What's up Adam?' Shalimar asked sleepily.
'Something just came up on the continuous scan we have running on the Genomex computer system.' It was Adam's current baby. Jesse and he had worked on it for a couple of weeks and had finally managed to hack their way into the Genomex system a couple of days earlier. They had set a scan running on everything going on in there; every memo went to the recipient via Mutant X, everytime someone logged out it was recorded on the Sanctuary computers. They knew everything the GSA knew.
'A man called Damien Whyler called in a report that a new mutant has turned up.'
'Who's the new mutant?' Shalimar asked.
'A woman called Emma DeLauro. She's a psionic,' Adam answered as Jesse drew up a picture of her. She was pretty; brunette, light blue eyes, fair skin. Shalimar frowned. She recognized the woman but she couldn't remember where from. It had been recent she knew that much.
'So we looked into all the files that had anything to do with Emma DeLauro,' continued Jesse. 'Apparently she was sighted earlier today and the GSA were going to take her out but were told to go after the real target.'
'Where was she spotted?'
'The same mall that you were at.'
Suddenly it all came flooding back to Shalimar. She remembered exactly where she had seen Emma. She had been the sales assistant who had helped her escape. She lay back on the bed, too tired to deal with a storyline that wouldn't have been out of place in a sci-fi movie.
'I was the real target,' she said quietly to herself.
'Yes,' Adam replied.
Brennan watched as the team did what they clearly did best; found a problem that needed solving and dealt with it the best way they knew how. He realized that so far he hadn't seen the whole Mutant X thing, he assumed Shalimar didn't normally sleep on the job, but so far he was impressed. He had never really had close friends, ones that he would have worked with so succinctly under pressure. The three people in front of him knew each others ways, they knew the quirks and the attitudes of the others. It was something he had always, to some extent wanted in his own life, that feeling of knowing other people, and not just the superficial stuff either. He realized that that was what he wanted out of life, to know someone, just one person better than he knew himself.
'So what's the plan?' Shalimar asked from where she was lying, her eyes closed, her breathing gradually becoming deeper and slower and calmer.
'You and Jesse are going to pick up Emma,' Adam replied without hesitation. He was, at the best of times cautious about sending the team into possibly dangerous situations, but he doubted the GSA would be able to work quite as quickly as Mutant X, and no car went as fast as the Double Helix.
A groan emitted from Shalimar as she was pulled up by Jesse. She glared at him as she made her way back to her room to get changed for the mission.
Brennan was unsure of how to proceed. He felt like he was completely on the outskirts, not a member of the team, but not simply an onlooker either. He watched as Adam checked over the details like Emma's address, her regular haunts, the GSA's current status. He wanted to help find the woman but he wasn't involved enough.
'If you feel up to it, you could go with them,' Adam said, still working away at the computer.
Brennan paused. He wasn't sure. He had never done the team thing before and maybe it was too soon.
'But if you're not ready then you can stay here with me and do some research,' Adam prompted as he turned around to face Brennan, his brown eyes glinting. He was goading Brennan into going. He wanted to test the elemental, see what he could do, see how powerful a new mutant he was. And the only way he could do that was to put him in a fighting situation, force him into the world that Adam had become so accustomed to.
'If you think I wouldn't get in the way,' Brennan replied.
He looked up as Shalimar poked her head round the edge of the lab door.
'We're going now,' she said to Adam with a smile.
'Brennan's going with you.'
Her chocolate brown eyes flicked towards him and she met his gaze head on. She seemed to be sizing him up, making sure that he wouldn't be too much of a liability. As she smiled he knew he had passed the test...so far. He picked his leather jacket up from one of the chairs and walked out of the room after her.
***
'You're not gonna blind me this time?' asked Brennan as the Helix lifted off the floor of the landing bay and hovered for a few seconds before moving forward.
'We checked you out while you were in Sanctuary,' replied Shalimar with a smirk. Brennan raised his eyebrows at her in amused suprise. He had expected to get checked over but not without even knowing it. 'And plus,' Shalimar continued 'I would kick your ass before you got a chance to try anything.' Brennan looked at her and took in the happy smile and the edge behind the eyes which told him she was absolutely serious. She still didn't fully trust him, and with the life that she lived, or what he had seen of it so far he understood. He found it difficult to trust anyone; too many people in the world looking to screw him over.
Shalimar turned her chair around so she could look out of the window. She always found that she enjoyed the journey so much more than the destination. The journey was like Christmas eve. The possibilities, the magic was still there, and you couldn't be quite sure what was gonna happen. Once you got there though you were probably going to get disappointed. She loved Christmas eve just like she loved the journey.
She could feel Brennan's dark brown eyes focused on the back of her head and felt her shoulders tense up a little. Normally she wasn't intimidated by guys but, even though it hadn't happened yet she had the feeling that Brennan would be able to turn her into a giggling school girl within seconds. She could feel the attraction between the two of them and was pretty sure he could too but she didn't want to make any kind of move. For one thing she wasn't sure how he felt about her and she was not planning on risking her dignity and pride on a maybe, and for another she wasn't sure about him period. Despite all the checks run by Adam Brennan Mulwray could turn out to be a psychotic new mutant looking for revenge with the help of the GSA. She had to be certain that Brennan was one of the good guys before she even stopped watching his every move.
Jesse looked across at Shalimar as he switched the Helix onto auto pilot. He could practically see the electricity between the two other people in the plane. He thought they would make a cute couple but it wasn't his place to tell either of them that. He liked Brennan. Didn't know a lot about him but Jesse had always been prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt, atleast until they screwed him over. He liked to give people the opportunity to prove that they were okay whereas Shalimar tended to take the more cynical route.
Jesse turned back to look out of the front window of the Helix. It had been a long time since he had gone out with anyone. He had never been that confident around women, around people in general. He had always waited for someone else to make the first move. Shalimar didn't have that problem. She didn't have the kind of inhibitions Jesse had. They balanced each other out.
***
Emma opened the door of her apartment and poked her head around the corner. She looked to the left and the right trying to listen for any sign of people in the building. There was none. Her apartment building was a notoriously quiet one. There were plenty of old people living there and she had picked it for that reason. They were always prepared to talk to the nice polite girl who carried their shopping up the stairs when the elevator had broken down and they always knew everyone that was coming and going. If any new people moved in Emma was among the first to know, and just by starting a conversation with one of her elderly neighbours she could find out their names, ages, likes, dislikes and entire histories.
She walked down the hallway the trainers she had replaced her boots with making sporadic squeaks on the polished wooden floor. She crept along the corridor hoping that none of her incredibly nosy neighbours decided to come out of their apartments at that moment. She reached the end of the hallway and looked out of the frosty window at the world, raw in all its cold glory. The occasional car passed along the road, the noise of their engines getting gradually louder and then just as gradually quieter again.
She walked to the stairwell and looked over the edge of the balustrade. She drew back quickly. She knew it had all been too good to be true. Five guys in suits were making their silent way up the stairs towards her. She had nowhere to run to. She could make her way to the fire escape cautiously and quietly but chances were they would hear her and then she'd never get out of the building. Or she could make a run for it and hope they didn't catch up to her. Or she could hide somewhere and hope that they didn't notice her at all. All of her options rested so heavily on what ifs and she was in a pessimistic mood and was pretty sure that none of them would work.
She looked across to the stairwell as she heard the click of a door being opened. She looked down and saw Mrs Carmichael, an elderly woman who was still as sprightly as she had been when she was seventeen. She was carrying two huge garbage bags, presumably taking them down to the bins on the ground floor. Emma looked at the men in suits and realised that she had just been given a way out. She looked on as Mrs Carmichael, always determined walked down the stairs towards the men. They all drew to the side of the stairs to make way for her but the garbage bags were too big and Emma watched on as they turned and made their way down the steps, defeat evident on their faces.
She walked back along the corridor, not worrying about being quiet, a small smile forming itself on her mouth. She moved quickly and reached the door that led to the fire escape and pulled it open. She walked out onto the metal and looked down. She drew her breath in quickly as she realised how much she had underestimated how much they wanted her. She looked down at the four cars that were parked on the street below and then her eyes moved to the six men making their way up the stairs towards her. She turned and fled up the stairs towards the roof. She knew she was simply avoiding the inevitable but she wanted to give herself more time. Her powers were useless as they only ever worked when she didn't want them to. It was almost laughable to her that whoever it was that was chasing her would send eleven men after her. What was she gonna do, take them all down in a flurry of new mutancy. She reached the roof and looked through the steam created by the air vents to try and find a place she could hide out for a little bit, even though she knew it wouldn't do any good. She figured it was human nature, running. It was like in horror movies. It was inevitable that when the bad guy started chasing you you were probably going to die. But nobody ever gave up, nobody ever stopped running because there was always that little spark of hope that everything would be okay, that a knight in shining armour would turn up and save you, whilst kicking the ass of the bad guy. She ran to the other side of the roof, hoping that she could hide behind all the steam, knowing that they would find her regardless.
She saw the figures moving through the mist and held her breath, watching as it formed rapidly vanishing clouds in front of her face.
'Miss DeLauro,' came a voice from the group of men in front of her. 'We only want to talk, there is no need to panic.'
She glared as the owner of the voice stepped forward. He was tall and broad shouldered and definitely looked like he meant business.
'And what if I don't want to talk?' she replied, wondering as she would in retrospect how she found her voice through so much fear.
'Then don't talk,' he replied. 'But you're coming with us anyway.'
He stepped forward and Emma moved back towards the rail that separated her from the fall to the ground below.
I hope you all enjoy this update. Thank you to all my reviewers. You are all extremely cool. And to everybody who is reading this...why haven't you reviewed already?
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
***
'Shalimar,' came Adam's voice over the comlink.
She looked up from the book she had been reading in bed. It was late and it had been a long day but she couldn't seem to get to sleep. She had been trying to lull herself into the world of the unconscious.
'Yeah,' she said quietly, seriously hoping that it wasn't anything major.
'I need you in the lab.'
She sighed deeply and closed the book. She got out of the bed leaning on everything heavily, aware that if she didn't she'd probably fall over from exhaustion.
She eventually made her way to the lab, opening the door by walking into it with her shoulder. She looked around her as she saw everyone gathered there already. Her hand automatically raised itself to her head and she pulled her hair out of the messy braid it had been in. She shook it out quickly, trying to make herself look natural in front of the group, especially Brennan. She walked over to the bed in the middle of the room and hauled herself onto it.
'You alright there Shal?' Jesse asked, a smirk playing on his lips.
'Its 1 in the morning, don't make me hurt you,' she bit back.
Jesse turned in his chair to face the computer monitor he had been working at. He knew Shalimar's moods like he knew the back of his hand. And he had been in Sanctuary long enough to know that when Shalimar was tired she could be worse than Atilla the Hun.
'What's up Adam?' Shalimar asked sleepily.
'Something just came up on the continuous scan we have running on the Genomex computer system.' It was Adam's current baby. Jesse and he had worked on it for a couple of weeks and had finally managed to hack their way into the Genomex system a couple of days earlier. They had set a scan running on everything going on in there; every memo went to the recipient via Mutant X, everytime someone logged out it was recorded on the Sanctuary computers. They knew everything the GSA knew.
'A man called Damien Whyler called in a report that a new mutant has turned up.'
'Who's the new mutant?' Shalimar asked.
'A woman called Emma DeLauro. She's a psionic,' Adam answered as Jesse drew up a picture of her. She was pretty; brunette, light blue eyes, fair skin. Shalimar frowned. She recognized the woman but she couldn't remember where from. It had been recent she knew that much.
'So we looked into all the files that had anything to do with Emma DeLauro,' continued Jesse. 'Apparently she was sighted earlier today and the GSA were going to take her out but were told to go after the real target.'
'Where was she spotted?'
'The same mall that you were at.'
Suddenly it all came flooding back to Shalimar. She remembered exactly where she had seen Emma. She had been the sales assistant who had helped her escape. She lay back on the bed, too tired to deal with a storyline that wouldn't have been out of place in a sci-fi movie.
'I was the real target,' she said quietly to herself.
'Yes,' Adam replied.
Brennan watched as the team did what they clearly did best; found a problem that needed solving and dealt with it the best way they knew how. He realized that so far he hadn't seen the whole Mutant X thing, he assumed Shalimar didn't normally sleep on the job, but so far he was impressed. He had never really had close friends, ones that he would have worked with so succinctly under pressure. The three people in front of him knew each others ways, they knew the quirks and the attitudes of the others. It was something he had always, to some extent wanted in his own life, that feeling of knowing other people, and not just the superficial stuff either. He realized that that was what he wanted out of life, to know someone, just one person better than he knew himself.
'So what's the plan?' Shalimar asked from where she was lying, her eyes closed, her breathing gradually becoming deeper and slower and calmer.
'You and Jesse are going to pick up Emma,' Adam replied without hesitation. He was, at the best of times cautious about sending the team into possibly dangerous situations, but he doubted the GSA would be able to work quite as quickly as Mutant X, and no car went as fast as the Double Helix.
A groan emitted from Shalimar as she was pulled up by Jesse. She glared at him as she made her way back to her room to get changed for the mission.
Brennan was unsure of how to proceed. He felt like he was completely on the outskirts, not a member of the team, but not simply an onlooker either. He watched as Adam checked over the details like Emma's address, her regular haunts, the GSA's current status. He wanted to help find the woman but he wasn't involved enough.
'If you feel up to it, you could go with them,' Adam said, still working away at the computer.
Brennan paused. He wasn't sure. He had never done the team thing before and maybe it was too soon.
'But if you're not ready then you can stay here with me and do some research,' Adam prompted as he turned around to face Brennan, his brown eyes glinting. He was goading Brennan into going. He wanted to test the elemental, see what he could do, see how powerful a new mutant he was. And the only way he could do that was to put him in a fighting situation, force him into the world that Adam had become so accustomed to.
'If you think I wouldn't get in the way,' Brennan replied.
He looked up as Shalimar poked her head round the edge of the lab door.
'We're going now,' she said to Adam with a smile.
'Brennan's going with you.'
Her chocolate brown eyes flicked towards him and she met his gaze head on. She seemed to be sizing him up, making sure that he wouldn't be too much of a liability. As she smiled he knew he had passed the test...so far. He picked his leather jacket up from one of the chairs and walked out of the room after her.
***
'You're not gonna blind me this time?' asked Brennan as the Helix lifted off the floor of the landing bay and hovered for a few seconds before moving forward.
'We checked you out while you were in Sanctuary,' replied Shalimar with a smirk. Brennan raised his eyebrows at her in amused suprise. He had expected to get checked over but not without even knowing it. 'And plus,' Shalimar continued 'I would kick your ass before you got a chance to try anything.' Brennan looked at her and took in the happy smile and the edge behind the eyes which told him she was absolutely serious. She still didn't fully trust him, and with the life that she lived, or what he had seen of it so far he understood. He found it difficult to trust anyone; too many people in the world looking to screw him over.
Shalimar turned her chair around so she could look out of the window. She always found that she enjoyed the journey so much more than the destination. The journey was like Christmas eve. The possibilities, the magic was still there, and you couldn't be quite sure what was gonna happen. Once you got there though you were probably going to get disappointed. She loved Christmas eve just like she loved the journey.
She could feel Brennan's dark brown eyes focused on the back of her head and felt her shoulders tense up a little. Normally she wasn't intimidated by guys but, even though it hadn't happened yet she had the feeling that Brennan would be able to turn her into a giggling school girl within seconds. She could feel the attraction between the two of them and was pretty sure he could too but she didn't want to make any kind of move. For one thing she wasn't sure how he felt about her and she was not planning on risking her dignity and pride on a maybe, and for another she wasn't sure about him period. Despite all the checks run by Adam Brennan Mulwray could turn out to be a psychotic new mutant looking for revenge with the help of the GSA. She had to be certain that Brennan was one of the good guys before she even stopped watching his every move.
Jesse looked across at Shalimar as he switched the Helix onto auto pilot. He could practically see the electricity between the two other people in the plane. He thought they would make a cute couple but it wasn't his place to tell either of them that. He liked Brennan. Didn't know a lot about him but Jesse had always been prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt, atleast until they screwed him over. He liked to give people the opportunity to prove that they were okay whereas Shalimar tended to take the more cynical route.
Jesse turned back to look out of the front window of the Helix. It had been a long time since he had gone out with anyone. He had never been that confident around women, around people in general. He had always waited for someone else to make the first move. Shalimar didn't have that problem. She didn't have the kind of inhibitions Jesse had. They balanced each other out.
***
Emma opened the door of her apartment and poked her head around the corner. She looked to the left and the right trying to listen for any sign of people in the building. There was none. Her apartment building was a notoriously quiet one. There were plenty of old people living there and she had picked it for that reason. They were always prepared to talk to the nice polite girl who carried their shopping up the stairs when the elevator had broken down and they always knew everyone that was coming and going. If any new people moved in Emma was among the first to know, and just by starting a conversation with one of her elderly neighbours she could find out their names, ages, likes, dislikes and entire histories.
She walked down the hallway the trainers she had replaced her boots with making sporadic squeaks on the polished wooden floor. She crept along the corridor hoping that none of her incredibly nosy neighbours decided to come out of their apartments at that moment. She reached the end of the hallway and looked out of the frosty window at the world, raw in all its cold glory. The occasional car passed along the road, the noise of their engines getting gradually louder and then just as gradually quieter again.
She walked to the stairwell and looked over the edge of the balustrade. She drew back quickly. She knew it had all been too good to be true. Five guys in suits were making their silent way up the stairs towards her. She had nowhere to run to. She could make her way to the fire escape cautiously and quietly but chances were they would hear her and then she'd never get out of the building. Or she could make a run for it and hope they didn't catch up to her. Or she could hide somewhere and hope that they didn't notice her at all. All of her options rested so heavily on what ifs and she was in a pessimistic mood and was pretty sure that none of them would work.
She looked across to the stairwell as she heard the click of a door being opened. She looked down and saw Mrs Carmichael, an elderly woman who was still as sprightly as she had been when she was seventeen. She was carrying two huge garbage bags, presumably taking them down to the bins on the ground floor. Emma looked at the men in suits and realised that she had just been given a way out. She looked on as Mrs Carmichael, always determined walked down the stairs towards the men. They all drew to the side of the stairs to make way for her but the garbage bags were too big and Emma watched on as they turned and made their way down the steps, defeat evident on their faces.
She walked back along the corridor, not worrying about being quiet, a small smile forming itself on her mouth. She moved quickly and reached the door that led to the fire escape and pulled it open. She walked out onto the metal and looked down. She drew her breath in quickly as she realised how much she had underestimated how much they wanted her. She looked down at the four cars that were parked on the street below and then her eyes moved to the six men making their way up the stairs towards her. She turned and fled up the stairs towards the roof. She knew she was simply avoiding the inevitable but she wanted to give herself more time. Her powers were useless as they only ever worked when she didn't want them to. It was almost laughable to her that whoever it was that was chasing her would send eleven men after her. What was she gonna do, take them all down in a flurry of new mutancy. She reached the roof and looked through the steam created by the air vents to try and find a place she could hide out for a little bit, even though she knew it wouldn't do any good. She figured it was human nature, running. It was like in horror movies. It was inevitable that when the bad guy started chasing you you were probably going to die. But nobody ever gave up, nobody ever stopped running because there was always that little spark of hope that everything would be okay, that a knight in shining armour would turn up and save you, whilst kicking the ass of the bad guy. She ran to the other side of the roof, hoping that she could hide behind all the steam, knowing that they would find her regardless.
She saw the figures moving through the mist and held her breath, watching as it formed rapidly vanishing clouds in front of her face.
'Miss DeLauro,' came a voice from the group of men in front of her. 'We only want to talk, there is no need to panic.'
She glared as the owner of the voice stepped forward. He was tall and broad shouldered and definitely looked like he meant business.
'And what if I don't want to talk?' she replied, wondering as she would in retrospect how she found her voice through so much fear.
'Then don't talk,' he replied. 'But you're coming with us anyway.'
He stepped forward and Emma moved back towards the rail that separated her from the fall to the ground below.