"I'm not sure who's got the toughest job: you and me, Jesse, or Emma." Brennan and Shalimar stood on the beach, flipping a mental coin for who would go north and who would go south around the perimeter of the island.
"No contest," Shalimar said. "Emma."
"Yeah." On second thought, Brennan agreed with the feral. Emma had volunteered to stay with Adam while Brennan and Shalimar searched the island for signs of the green-haired girl. Neither one really believed that the girl had plunged into the ocean and swum into the deep blue depths. In fact, the girl's whole existence was in question, there being little to no evidence that someone more substantial than a hallucination had been present. Adam was upset and pacing over the whole incident, barely allowing himself to be led inside and wanting to lead the search himself. It took all of Emma's tact to calm him down, and Brennan privately thought that Emma had finally resorted to a mild psionic jolt to accomplish it.
Jesse had taken the Helix to get the parts to fix the generator. As much as the molecular wanted to join the search, if he didn't leave immediately he wouldn't be able to return in time before the edge of the hurricane hit. And while he was a good pilot, pushing the Helix through gale force winds was something every good pilot avoided if he wanted to become an old good pilot. That was Emma's other task while Brennan and Shalimar conducted a search: to keep in contact with Jesse high up in the sky. Jesse intended to do a quick fly-over of the island, to see if he could see any sign of Adam's mysterious visitor.
"Not a sign," came Jesse's voice over the radio, crackling slightly. "I see the ruins in the north. They look untouched."
"What ruins, Jesse?"
"Didn't I tell you about those? Some Spanish conquistadors back in the seventeenth century built it as a fortress against pirates. Not much is left, but they're pretty—" crackle, crackle. "I was planning on a picnic lunch there in the watch tower some afternoon while we're here. I was even hoping to explore inside." Crackle, crackle. "It's all sealed off, so I was never able to get in when I was here as a kid. Now I have easy access whenever I want." Static hiss.
"Do you see anything that looks like life?" Emma could feel Adam's eyes on her back, imploring the molecular to reply in the affirmative.
"Nothing on land. I see Shalimar, heading north toward the ruins." There was a pause. "I'm going to head over to the mainland now. I'll be flying pretty low so that I can scan the ocean for anything that looks like Adam's visitor. I'm setting the sensors to search for anything warm-blooded, and smaller than a dolphin. I'll call in the results when I get back. Jesse out."
Emma turned back to Adam with an especially bright smile. "They're all looking, Adam."
"And haven't found anything yet."
"You didn't expect it to be easy, did you?"
"I could always hope." Adam couldn't be cranky with Emma. She had taken his side. Emma gave a little mental 'nudge' to push Adam toward sleepiness, counting on the remnants of his pain-killers to do the rest.
* * *
"It's him." The green-haired girl was definite. She pointed to the cover of the soggy magazine that she had retrieved from the surface of the ocean when it had been dropped overboard. "There's no doubt about it. It was him."
"Do the air people know about him?" The speaker was the leader of the small group, a great hulking merman who wore his own green hair close-cropped to his skull for better speed through the water. The webbing between his fingers was large, flopping in folds when he closed his fist. He listened intently to the girl, entranced by her words, although the more observant of the group would sardonically note that he was equally entranced by her figure. He rubbed those webbed fingers together, wishing that he could rub them against her cheek.
Quick-Fin briefly caught her brother's eye, in the back of the crowd, then quickly turned back to Tidal-Wave, giving him a wide-eyed innocent look. "No," she lied.
Tidal-Wave considered. "We must find out more about this land-dweller," he declared, "before the air people discover his presence and seek to destroy him and the other intruders. He may be our salvation." He tested the water around him, frowning. "A storm approaches. We will take foot on the beach after it passes. Everyone, prepare."
* * *
It wasn't alarm this time, it was determination. Neither was it auditory. Emma felt the first emotional stirrings some thirty minutes after Jesse had signed off, radioing that he hadn't seen any signs of intelligent life, including the visitors already on the island.
"Brennan and Shalimar are intelligent," Emma had rebutted his feeble attempt at humor.
"That's up for debate. Helix out."
Emma had settled in for a meditation session, casting around for intelligent human thoughts herself, anything that might account for Adam's green-haired girl. There was nothing to indicate that she was anything more than a narcotic-induced hallucination. Brennan had laughed at Emma's pointing out the damp area, noting that Adam's glass, still filled with melting ice, could easily have collected enough condensation to drip onto the floor.
But Adam seemed so certain. Which is why when he called to her telempathically, without alarm, she hustled to his bedroom.
Adam was sitting up in bed, covers awry, staring at something outside the window. He held up his arm to stop her. "There's another one. Don't scare her away."
"Who, Adam?"
"Outside. This one has blue hair. And wings."
"Wings?" Emma struggled to peer around the window enough to see what Adam was looking at. Whatever, or whoever, Adam was staring at, Emma couldn't detect any psychic activity of any sort. "Where?"
"Just beyond that tree. Don't come any closer; she'll bolt. Damn, there she goes." Adam threw back the covers and darted to the window. "She's gone. Damn. Damn, damn," he groaned as his knees gave out. "Did you see her, Emma?"
"Sit down before you fall down," she scolded, grabbing him around the waist and easing the man back onto the bed.
"But did you see her?"
"No," Emma was forced to admit. "The angle was wrong. What did she look like?"
"Like the classic artist's rendition of an angel. Big white wings. Blue hair, crystal blue like the sky. I think she had blue eyes, but I was too far away to tell. She was looking in at me." He turned back to the empath. "She knew I was looking at her, Emma. There was intelligence in her eyes. This was no bird. This was a living, breathing, flying human." A smile lit Adam's face. "Think of it, Emma! That was a perfect, natural mutation! There was nothing like it at Genomex! Somehow these people have acquired a naturally occurring mutation that managed to fix itself in their genome. Think of the advances we could make by studying them!"
Adam grew serious. "Call Brennan and Shalimar. Let them know to look for people with wings. We have to find them, Emma!"
* * *
"Birds." Shalimar did not sound thrilled at Adam's discovery. "People with wings. When is that pain-killer supposed to wear off, Emma?"
"Give him the benefit of the doubt, Shalimar," Emma pleaded. "You know that he's come up with amazing discoveries before."
"In a test tube, sure. Adam's the best. But right now, Emma, only he has seen these people with weird hair. None of the rest of us can find any trace of these supposed people. What are we supposed to think?"
"Did you find any trace of them on the island?" Emma pushed ahead.
"Nope. I found Jesse's ruins, though. They're pretty neat, all covered with vines and moss. Plan for a picnic here later in the week, after the storm blows through." Shalimar sniffed the air, scanning the horizon. "But not a sign of intelligent life. Bunches of hermit crabs, and lots of little sparrow birds—"
"Bananaquits," Emma interjected helpfully, identifying the species.
"Lots of little birds," Shalimar repeated. "But no people. Have you heard from Brennan?"
"He's going a bit slower than you. Says the beaches are a little more rocky on the south side of the island."
"I'll meet him on the far side, and we'll cut across to the bungalow." Shalimar still found it hard to term the six bedroom mansion a 'small bungalow.'
* * *
Quick-Fin and her brother Sharp-Coral were the first to reach their meeting point, a rocky ledge that raised itself a short distance above the waves. It was an ideal spot: not easily seen from land, sea, or air. They both looked grim and determined. Sharp-Coral hauled himself up onto the ledge, giving his sister a hand to slither onto the wet rock beside him.
They didn't have long to wait. Moments later they heard what they had expected: a flurry of wings. Two of the air people touched lightly down on the ledge beside them.
And embraced.
"I've missed you," Sharp-Coral told the girl, caressing the blue hair that melted naturally into the white wings. She felt so light in his arms, so unlike the rest of his people but so unerringly right to him. Feather nuzzled him, fitting into his arms with the ease of long and longed-for practice.
Quick-Fin had sought out the other aerialist. Talon pinned her laughingly against the rock wall, stealing a kiss and then another. Quick-Fin grabbed Talon by the neck and jumped onto him, swinging her webbed toes around his slender torso. Talon proved that, while hollow-boned and light to traverse the skies, the air people were far from feeble.
They didn't have much time for reunions. Reluctantly, they sat down, nestled against one another, to discuss their plans.
"Did you see him?" Quick-Fin asked.
Feather nodded. "But he was indoors. I couldn't get to him."
"Did he see you?"
"Yes."
"Was he intrigued?"
"Yes. He watched me as long as he could. But then one of his friends came, and I had to leave." Feather looked pensive. "I think it may be difficult to get him away from them. They watch him very closely. Even when he is alone, they are nearby."
"Are they friends, or are they his captors?" Sharp-Coral wanted to know. "We can fight them."
"I think they are his friends, although he argues frequently with them," Feather replied. "I think he has been ill. He has slept most of the hours he has been here, while the others work around the dwelling. I have been watching them from afar."
"If they are his friends, it will be easier," was Talon's opinion. "He will work to save them. We can go ahead with our plan. Did you speak to Tidal-Wave?"
"Yes," said Quick-Fin. "He reacted just as we thought. He is readying our people to attack the land-dwellers. But we must time our actions very carefully. Tidal-Wave will arrive at the land-dwellers' house after the storm passes." She looked worried at Talon. "You are certain that your people know nothing of this scientist? They will not interfere?"
Talon grinned. "They are far too busy playing in the drafts of wind. Many of our children are testing their new skills against the angry air from the storm." He shook his head, showing bright white teeth. "No, there is nothing to fear from my brothers and sisters, heart of my heart. We will slip in and steal away the scientist while his guardians are busy fighting Tidal-Wave and the rest of the sea-people." He absently stroked Quick-Fin shoulder, but didn't miss her quick response of pleasure. Tidal-Wave might long for this mermaid, but Talon was the one who owned her heart. "With the scientist's help, we will ensure our future."
* * *
If he had time, Jesse would have given vent to a steady stream of curses. The winds at ten thousand feet were taking their cue from the approaching hurricane, throwing gusts this way and that and tossing the Helix around like a giant playing tennis solo against a brick wall. Three times the Helix had been thrown into a sharp dive, and Jesse was just barely able to pull it out before the craft was grabbed by the ten foot high waves.
"Helix to base," he radioed. "Emma, this is taking longer than we'd planned. I'm getting some rough weather up here."
"Can you make it in, Jesse? Turn back to the mainland if you have to."
"Easier to land on the island," Jesse said stoutly, hoping that he was right. "I'm closer, I think. Whoa!"
"Jesse!"
"It's all right. Just another down draft. Hey, Emma, I'm getting something on the radar."
"Never mind the radar, Jess. Just get back here in one piece."
"No, Emma, listen. I never turned the sensors off. They're pinging now. Tell Adam that there are some warm bodies in the water below, bodies that are smaller than dolphins. Yow!"
"Jesse!" Emma screeched.
"Why can't we find a mutant who can control the weather?" Jesse groused. "I could really use him about now."
Then—static.
"Jesse?" Emma toggled the radio. "Jesse? Jesse, come in!"
Adam came up behind her, taking a seat and coughing. "The Helix?"
Emma nodded. "And Jesse. I can't raise him."
Adam stiffened. But he only said, "Jesse's a good pilot."
They both knew what he meant.
* * *
"Shalimar? You got anything?" Brennan was growing bored. The scenery was lush and beautiful, but the overcast sky had him nervous. The wind was picking up, whipping palm fronds back and forth. Once Brennan had narrowly missed being conked on the head by a falling cocoanut.
And the temperature was dropping. Instead of being a balmy afternoon on a Caribbean island, it was cooling off into a pre-hurricane chill. Brennan wished that he'd brought his wind-breaker along, not just for the wind but for the occasional droplet that couldn't wait for the storm proper to arrive.
There was nothing here to see. No sign of Adam's green-haired girl, either on land or on sea. No sign of blue-haired girls with wings. Even the regular birds were taking shelter against the upcoming blow.
"Not yet." There was a pause, during which Brennan knew that Shalimar was working up her courage to ask something uncomfortable. "Do you believe him?"
"Emma does." Brennan avoided the question.
"Do you?" Shalimar wouldn't let him wriggle away.
Brennan sighed. "Shal, those pain-killers are potent stuff. They can cause hallucinations that seem pretty real. You know that."
"Yeah." Shalimar seemed just as discouraged on her end. "How far are you?"
"Coming close on the mid-way point. You?"
"Not as far. I stopped to look over the ruins on the north end. They're neat, and definitely worth looking at. We'll have to go exploring, after the storm."
"Hmm."
"Brennan?"
"Hang on, Shal. I spotted something."
"Adam's blue and green people?"
"Probably not. Just a trail in the bushes. Probably made by a deer or something." He sighed. The ideal situation right now would be to head back to the bungalow, find Jesse back and the generator already fixed, and a tall glass of lemonade waiting for him beside the bubbling hot tub with steaming hot scented water where they could all wait out the hurricane. "I'll check it out, then head for the midway point. I should be there in twenty minutes or so. Out."
Shalimar sighed as well. The sole redeeming benefit to this hunt was the chance to get out and stretch her feral legs, and that benefit was rapidly growing old. She had her run, she'd sniffed the air, and found nothing. It was time to tell Adam that those women were simply his narcotic-stimulated imagination gone wild. The man needed to get out more, she decided on the spot.
It wasn't until five minutes later that she realized that something was still troubling her. It was Brennan's last call. He was going to check out a trail through the bushes, made by some deer or something.
There was only one problem: there were no deer on this island. The biggest land-traveling creatures, aside from themselves, were a few lizards that would fit in one hand and an immense fiddler crab that had taken refuge from its usual sunny rock in deference to the upcoming storm. None of them could create a trail of any size through the underbrush.
Shalimar put her comm. ring up to her lips. "Brennan? You there?"
No answer.
Shalimar felt the first stirrings of alarm. "Brennan? Come in, Brennan. Talk to me, buddy."
Still dead air.
Her relaxed air vanished. Shalimar went on alert, feral senses keen. She tabbed the ring again. "Emma? I'm not reaching Brennan. He was checking out something bigger than a bread box, and I'm going to see what it was."
"Shall I join you?"
"No. I'll keep in touch. If there really is something, or someone out there, we'll want to keep someone with Adam. And pretty soon it's going to get very wet outside here. No use in both of us taking a shower. When's Jesse due back?"
"Any minute," Emma lied. "He said he's having a rough time upstairs."
"Well, tell him to get a move on. I'm getting a bad feeling about this. Shalimar out." She sniffed the air. Just the tang of the sea breeze, the green scent of leaves broken by the wind. But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.
* * *
Brennan slammed the stone wall in frustration. This was so not where he needed to be. From the looks of it, this was the inside of Jesse's Spanish fortress with no visible doors. The sole opening was a small area some ten body lengths above his head. The only way to get out was to fly.
Which was approximately how he'd gotten in here. It was a classic decoy ploy, and Brennan Mulray the sucker who fell for it. Dangle a blue babe with wings in front of him, then hit him from behind while he was still goggling at her. Next thing he knew, Mrs. Mulray's little boy was falling into this stone prison.
Normally he would have been able to get out. As his powers matured, Brennan had learned how to use the force from his electrical blast to shoot himself up into the air, and he was a natural enough athlete to land back on terra firma without breaking anything more than a sweat. Here, however, stuck in this stone silo, Brennan found himself standing in four inches of standing water. Water that stank from the moss and algae that grew and flourished, and threatened Brennan with parboiled oblivion if he were foolish enough to try to use his powers.
He'd already tried climbing up the rough rock wall. It wasn't rough enough; he'd fallen back twice. A third time didn't look any more likely to succeed.
He couldn't call for help, either. The thick stone prevented the signal from getting out or any signal getting in. Brennan Mulray was well and truly stuck.
He sarcastically imagined what he could say if his ring did work. "I've got good news and bad news, guys."
Shalimar would say, "What, Bren?"
He would answer, "The good news is that Adam is not crazy. He really did see a girl with long blue hair and wings, because I saw her, too. And he probably saw the green girl who likes to swim. I didn't see her, but I did feel her big brother conk me over the head from behind."
"And the bad news?" That would be Jesse, always wanting to challenge him.
"The bad news, bro," Brennan would reply, "is that I am now their captive, and I have no idea why they want me, unless it's for my good looks."
Whereupon Jesse would quip, "Better hope they're blind, then, Brennan."
Brennan slammed his fist against the wall in frustration.
* * *
"He's alive," Emma reported. "I don't know where he is, but he's not dead. He's just very, very annoyed. I can feel him."
"Not hurt?" Adam wanted to know.
"Sore, maybe. Angry."
"That sounds like someone is holding him," Shalimar translated, "which is like what I found on the beach. He was looking at something, or someone, who didn't leave any tracks in the sand. Someone else came up behind him and knocked him out. There were signs of him falling to the sand, then two or more someone's picking him up. Then footprints vanish."
"The green haired girl," Adam said. There was no triumph in his voice, only grim determination.
"Probably not. Brennan's no light weight. She had to have had help, probably the other couple sets of footprints that I saw. And, Adam, those footprints didn't belong to any dainty little girl. There are some large men types who are Brennan's size or larger. And, Adam," Shalimar said, "when I told you that the footsteps vanished, I mean that they vanished. Poof. They didn't track anywhere. Not into the ocean, not into the trees. Just vanished, as in 'beam me up, Scotty.' Or flapped their wings and flew."
"We're not alone," Emma realized.
Adam chose not to say: I told you so. Shalimar, for her part, gathered up her pack, stuffing some supplies in it.
Adam stopped her. "Where do you think you're going?"
"After Brennan. Your blue-haired date has done something with him."
"I'm going with you." He couldn't help the cough that slipped out.
"Not a chance." Shalimar didn't stop what she was doing. "You've already got pneumonia. You've got a concussion. You're staying here."
"Then at least take Emma with you. I'll be fine until Jesse gets here."
"Don't." Emma's voice was quiet. "You're not being fair, Adam."
"Emma." Warningly.
Shalimar looked up, worry for yet another teammate taking its turn. "What? What about Jesse? Emma? Adam, where's Jesse?"
"We haven't heard from him in over an hour," Emma confessed. "He was flying through the edges of the storm. We lost radio contact."
"Where was he?" Shalimar could feel the ice crawl through her veins.
Adam sighed, no longer able to hide. "Near as we can figure, somewhere over the water some ten miles from here. If he went down, there's not a chance of survival."
Shalimar turned back to her packing, stuffing items into the bag with reckless abandon, tears threatening to leak from her eyes. Adam halted her with a gentle hand on her wrist. "Shalimar, there's nothing you can do."
"Yes, there is," she choked out, wishing it sounded more like a feral snarl.
"What?"
"I can find those damn water people of yours, and make them rescue Jesse. Then I'm going to tear a few feathers off those bird people until they tell me where they've got Brennan." She dashed a tear from her eye. "And don't try to stop me, Adam."
* * *
Rain had started with a vengeance. Fat drops pelted the ground, striking Shalimar with the force of a stinging shower of hail. The sky had turned black, and the winds whipped through the palm trees, sending fronds and sand hurtling against her progress. She kept to the trees, using their bulk for whatever windbreak she could in order to cover distance. She kept low to the ground as well, allowing much of the gale-force winds to sweep well over her head. Feral senses were of no use in this situation; the wind passed by too quickly to be sampled, and any heat signature was lost in the storm.
It seemed like a hopeless task, but Shalimar wouldn't give up. Her teammate was out here somewhere, and she was determined to find him. If she found Brennan, Shalimar reasoned, then she would undoubtedly find Adam's sea people, or wind people. Either way, she could rescue Brennan and somehow force his captors to help search for Jesse. Can't lose situation: gain a team member, and additional help. Shalimar refused to consider the alternative, that she wouldn't find anyone. Or, worse, that she'd find Brennan's lifeless body in a salt water bog.
The wind roared more fiercely, nearly deafening her. Shalimar ducked instinctively, almost crouching to the island floor in an effort to escape the howling wind. No—it wasn't simply wind. Something massive passed overhead, crashing through the palm trees bent nearly double in the wind, neatly shearing off the tops.
It was so large that she almost didn't recognize it. It was rare that Shalimar saw it from this angle: the Helix, on an intercept course with the ground. It broke through trees, sending leaves swirling about in the gale-force winds, coming in far too fast and at too steep an angle.
"Jesse!" she screamed, heedless that her teammate couldn't hear her. The Helix slammed up against a rock wall that jutted up out of the center of the island, carving a rough path of broken vegetation for Shalimar to follow. It rocked back and forth, dumping velocity into the uncaring sand. An engine blew and sent up a shower of sparks that looked frighteningly bright against the gray of the rain. The droplets landed on the outer surface of the Helix and sizzled into vapor.
"Jesse!" Shalimar screamed again. She activated her comm. ring. "Adam! Emma! The Helix just landed!"
"Thank God!" Adam's voice held more relief than she could ever remember. "Is he all right?"
"I don't know. The Helix crashed. I'm going in."
"Be careful, Shalimar. Remember, we still don't know what happened to Brennan. Or who else is on this island. Watch your back."
* * *
"Ow," said Jesse.
"Be grateful you're alive," Adam said, supervising Emma's bandaging of the molecular's sprained ankle. "You were late getting back, and you ran into the hurricane. You should have stayed on the mainland, and come back after it blew through."
Jesse winced, less from his ankle and more from a guilty conscience. "I honestly thought I could make it, Adam. I left in plenty of time. I was making good time, even using the hurricane winds to boost fuel efficiency."
"But—?"
"I saw these anomalies on sonar. Warm bodies, Adam, lots of 'em."
"Dolphins?"
"Not unless dolphins are now coming in miniature. These were not a pod of immature babies, Adam. This was a group of at least twenty or thirty, possibly more. Ow, Emma, take it easy."
"Leave her alone," Adam ordered. "You were lucky to crawl out of the Helix alive."
"Yeah." Jesse sobered. "Thanks, Shalimar."
"You can thank me by getting the Helix up and running again," Shalimar told him. "You did a pretty nice job of mangling it."
"It's gonna take a few days," Jesse acknowledged soberly. "I'll get started on it."
"Not until the storm dies down," Emma told him. "We've already got one member of this team with pneumonia; you want to make it two?"
"I can work from the inside."
"You can work on the generator," Shalimar said. "Right now, we need that more. I'm going after Brennan. Emma, you up for a walk in the rain?"
"Hey, wait a minute," Jesse protested. "I'll get pneumonia, but you won't?"
Shalimar smirked. "We'll be working up a sweat, and then we'll sensibly come inside and dry off. You'd stay out there all day getting more and more soaked. C'mon, Emma."
* * *
Frustrated, with a few dozen exclamation points after it. Brennan didn't bother pounding the stone wall any longer. As a stress relief, it had lost its effectiveness.
No one had come by to check on him, either. It was hard to estimate time, but the storm hadn't died down, so Brennan guessed that it had only been a few hours at most. The wind whistled by overhead, occasionally throwing small twigs and leaves down on top of him. The detritus floated forlornly on the boggy water that surrounded his ankles.
The one good thing about this prison was that it protected him against the hurricane. Only a drop or two made it past the opening above, although the level of water around his feet was slowly seeping higher. It had risen another four inches in the last hour. Even that would be a good thing; Brennan entertained thoughts of treading water until the level got him to where he could grasp the top grating and haul himself up and out.
He felt cold and wet.
"What a joke," he said out loud, more to have something to listen to than anything else. "If I get pneumonia in here, I'm never going to hear the end of it from Adam."