PART TWO: ONE YEAR LATER…

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Peeking in from behind the thick wooden door was a young aide to the newly elected President.

"President McIntosh?" The aide questioned timidly to the back of a large leather office chair. The chair slowly spun around, revealing a polished looking young man. He gave a cheesy smile as he tightened his tie and questioned, "Yes?"

The aide gave a slight quiver then said that he had received the reports on Base One for him. To this McIntosh gave a real smile and gestured for the aide to come in.

The aide entered and set the thick manila folder on McIntosh's desk; and began to walk away.

"Have we heard anything from Base Two yet?" McIntosh inquired.

The aide paused before turning around. "No, Sir. Although I am aware that they have had some…troubles in the construction process."

McIntosh nodded gravely, "Yes, I know. Well, good work. Have a good day." He said with a salute-like gesture.

The aide forced a nervous smile before quickly vacating the room.

As soon as the door clanked shut behind him, the aide breathed a sigh of relief. Though with the recent success of Base One and continuous media coverage, McIntosh had as of late been excessively upbeat, one could never take something like that for granted.

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Once the aide was gone, McIntosh returned to his view out the window behind him. The window gave him a rather nice view of the below front lawn, not to mention the multiple secret service agents that were supposedly placed strategically around the White House. McIntosh snorted at this thought.

It had been a busy year, if he did say so himself. The media had finally caught up them somewhere along the line. Surprisingly though, there had been no need to hide Base One and the rest of the project for the several months that they did. Once He and McKenna had announced a 'containment camp' for the terror causing mutants currently threatening American society', the idea had been welcomed with open arms. Calls came pouring in for weeks afterward from concerned citizens wanting to report mutants in hiding. This in fact is what had led to the construction of Base Two.

Unfortunately, Base Two was having many more severe delays than Base One had had. Every few weeks it seemed a new kind of vandalism occurred, but things were still coming along very nicely.

In fact, things in both camps were coming along so greatly, they were prepared to move in the high level mutants. Lehnsherr, Xavier, Darkholme, were currently being transported to Base One. At the moment they were tracking the infamous John Allerdyce and the Wolverine.

Ah yes, The Wolverine. William Stryker had left so much about him in his files, one would get the idea that Stryker was quite obsessed with the man- if you could call Wolverine a man. The mutant was on the run -that was something one could be certain of. Every week or two, three at the most he was spotted. Mostly, he was smart and stayed frozen up in the Canadian Rockies. One time though, right before McIntosh was elected, he had been spotted making a steady line for Base One – and they almost caught him then. Well, all that produced was a half-destroyed guard station and nearly twenty deaths.

But back to him, McIntosh, now. Peter McIntosh had been elected President last November by a landslide, no recount necessary that year! Of course, the 'evidence' he had found on McKenna was so startling, it really wasn't a surprise that less than 30% had voted for him. McIntosh grinned at the fond memory.

His intercom buzzed.

"Talk to me," He told it…all with much more merrily than he would have a year ago. Things had been on the rocks then, but now, he was in the driver's seat.

"Sir," His secretary with a nasally voice began. "We just received a report from the lab… They said they can fax the report to you if ya don't wanna talk to them." She stated between loud smacks of her gum.

McIntosh grimaced. "Thank you, Mary." He said quickly before turning off the intercom. Good help was nearly impossible to find…He would have to remember to have that bumbling aide fire that secretary in the morning.

With that though, he picked up his shiny, black office phone and began dialing up the lab. They had better have good news or else heads would roll.

The line rang five times and he was about ready to hang up when it was finally picked up. At this point though, McIntosh was in a very temperamental mood. No one made the fricking President of the fricking United States wait to talk. No one.

"President McIntosh!" The overly cheerful voice of the lab's CEO immediately called out. "How is Base Two coming along?

McIntosh gave one of his stressed smiles even though he was on the phone and could not be seen.

"Is it ready?" He demanded. This was not the time for pleasantries. When the serum was complete; then they could mingle and make small talk as much as they pleased, but that time was most certainly not now.

"Well, As you know we did run into some difficulties, sir," The CEO Struggled.

"No, I do not know." McIntosh hissed.

"There was the problem of recreating it, as the original organic source had been…um…destroyed. There was then the problem with the bacteria strain, and the restriction enzymes, but to make it short that set us behind a good month perhaps two." The CEO said as calm and collected as one could under the circumstances.

"I can not give you bastards anymore time!" McIntosh screamed into the phone with fury. From the other end the CEO could be heard stammering for some sort of explanation.

"Now," McIntosh said, interrupting the man. "I want that serum. I need that serum. If not one of your damn employees can do this then we may see a drastic change around here. Do you understand?"

"But, But, Sir!" The CEO cried as McIntosh slammed the phone down.

Breathing heavily, McIntosh slowly at back in his chair and rested his shining dress shoes on his desk's edge. He gave a cocky grin to himself for he knew he would get the serum by morning. Plenty of time…

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Theresa Roarke, also known as Siryn, let out a long, rasping breath. She could just barely move from her sitting position. Another rasping breath. With her little amount of mobility she slowly rocked back and forth. They would be coming soon. Yes, they always came.

The dim light above her blinked in and out several times as she heard the sound of footsteps. He heart raced at the sound.

The footsteps paused right outside her cell. It was them, It was them. Her rocking stopped with this terrifying thought.

Several feet away a bright light sprang forth. As her eyes adjusted she could she the guard here to give her the injection.

The guard took several steps inside and leaned over. Siryn opened her mouth to scream but all that emerged was rattling gasp. To this the guard laughed. "Keep it up, mutie!" He cheered sarcastically as he reached behind her head. Pushing he head farther back he injected her with a syringe in the base of her neck. He slowly backed away, pausing to look down at her while she mouthed obscenities at him. He laughed as he walked away, closing the door behind him. The room plunged back into the dim darkness.

Siryn began to shudder, her shuddering becoming a full body shake. The thick foaming kept her in place though. Her cell was filled with a thick off-white foam which filled each wall. In the very center of the cell she sat, wedged in between the slabs. She had always guessed his was a precaution to drown out any sounds that may come from within, case the injections ever failed.

Twice daily, for however long she'd been here, a guard came and injected her, as had just happened. By the time she was even semi-close to being able to whisper again, they returned with another injection.

'Always another injection.' She thought as she resumed her gentle rocking.

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Brian was out in the field when the helicopters came. That's what he did nowadays; work out building things or planting things sometimes even dismantling things out in the field. The field was made up of the few dozen miles of empty desert out past the bunkers and labs. Luckily he had never been one of the ones forced to work with the executioners.

The executioner's had the worst job around. Though there were multiple forms of unnatural death in the camp, there where three which were the most popular.

First, there was shooting. This was probably the most common, as it could happen out in the fields, so they could just leave the body out there. Then there were always the public execution, such as the hangings and beheadings. These tended to be saved for the occasional mutant, but InValids were sometimes an exception. There was a rumor going about though, that there were new plans in the works. An Invalid who had just come recently had spoken of the troubles the new President was facing with overcrowding in this camp and numerous delays in the future camp's construction. They said his next option was to decrease the current population of this camp drastically unless something could be done soon. This certainly did not sound good at the time, but since then Brian had brushed it off. The new people always seemed to think they were not only better, but also they still hadn't accepted the reality that they too were probably going to die here.

But going back to the helicopters Brian saw. He had been out about half a mile outside of the farthest points from the camp (still within the main fence though of course), with about twenty other workers and what he guessed to be seven or eight guards amongst them. They were working on a new storage container, one of the less interesting jobs, but it was still better than some.

That's when the noise had started. One of the other prisoners had actually noticed it first, but within seconds everyone in the group was looking up at the clear blue sky and watching the grouping of miniscule black dots cross it.

"Reckon their heading back to camp?" One of the older, southern members of their little brigade had questioned aloud.

Throughout this, the guards remained silent, only one even bothering to look up.

"Yep, I reckon they are doing just that," The Southerner continued before turning back to his work.

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A/N: Thanks everyone for your great reviews, once again, you guys all rock!

Dslguy14 -- Sorry if it got a bit slow-paced in their, Promise something's are coming to shake up this humdrum little concentration camp! ; ) Also, you should be completely totally and absolutely be expecting a mutation out of Brian, remember, only 67% chance of mutation!

Cat-- See the above about Brian's….condition pertaining to mutation. Thanks for the review!

Guin-- Hmmm…..Now if I told you who it was, then I'd wreck the whole 'shocking revealing of the truth…' Nah, I think I'd much rather save that for a tad bit longer.

Pendragon4 -- Yay! Can't wait to read it! Thanks

Kasey22 – Once again, thanks and glad you like it!

Gosh, you guys are all so wonderful! *Grins* Keep on reviewing!